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How to Become a Rockstar Communicator

How to Become a Rockstar Communicator

by | Sep 7, 2026 | Female Leaders

Typically, women don’t lose their voice in a single moment. It happens gradually, in a thousand small acts of editing: the qualifier added before the opinion, the sentence softened before it lands, the point made smaller, so it takes up less space in the room. Emmanuella Grace has spent decades understanding why that happens, first as a professional performer on stages including the Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House, and now as the voice and communication expert behind Find Your Voice, coaching technical leaders at organisations including PwC, Future Fund, and Amazon.

In this conversation, Emmanuella and I go beneath confidence and technique to the part of this story most communication training never touches: the amygdala hijack. That split-second, physiological response that floods a woman’s body with fear the moment she’s expected to speak, regardless of how many times she’s been in that boardroom before. We trace how socialisation, not capability, teaches women to qualify themselves before they’ve made their point, why men are so often the loudest champions of women’s voices in rooms where other women stay silent, and why the research on introverts may upend everything you’ve assumed about who is naturally built for the stage.

This is a conversation for every woman who has felt her voice disappear at the exact moment she needed it most and wanted to understand why.

 

➡️You’ll Hear :

  • Why the amygdala hijack happens identically in every brain, and what makes women’s socialised response to it different
  • The physiology of fear, and why telling a woman to “just breathe” has never been enough
  • Why introverts may be the most underrated communicators in the room.

 

💡Key Takeaways:

  • Self-silencing is learned, not innate, and can be unlearned with the right tools
  • Finding your voice starts with owning it
  • Authenticity, not performance, is what audiences and boardrooms are responding to.

 

Emmanuella said:

“It’s physiologically the same for all of us. We all have a little nut inside our brain that tells us this is dangerous, get ready for action.”

“There’s a word that’s had such a thorough bashing I’m loath to use it. But it’s at the heart of this: authenticity.”

“High executive function leads to high executive presence.”

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (00:02)

Power women, what does it mean to you?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (00:06)

I come from a background where I think in the context of choirs and bands and a thought that often comes to me is how do we be greater than the sum of our parts? And women naturally congregate into communities. We are nurturers and people that come together collectively by instinct. And I think that that’s the great gift of communities when they’re pulling together is their ability to be greater than the sum of their parts. And that’s what I think is the power of women.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (00:47)

Di Gillett and welcome to the Power Of Women Podcast where we celebrate the strength, resilience, and achievements of women from all walks of life. And whilst most podcasts tell you what’s possible, these women will share with you what it took to get there. It’s a place where women supporting women isn’t just a sentiment, it’s a decision we make every single day. Today I’m joined by a woman who has

 

Built a career helping others with the one thing many of us have struggled to grasp: your voice. She has performed at Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, and Sydney Opera House. Joining me in this studio, she is the voice and communication expert, a former professional performer and founder of Find Your Voice. Emmanuella Grace, welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN Podcast

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (01:43)

Di, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. You can hear that in my voice, I’m sure.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (01:49)

We

 

did share just off camera that the first time we did meet, I told you to stop. I’m not gonna do that today.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (01:59)

I love a woman who knows boundaries and how to put them right in their place.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (02:03)

Maybe. But before we get into the word today and we are going to do some work, I want to know about Emmanuella Grace. What was the defining experience that brought you to this point?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (02:17)

I think we look back on these things with 2020 vision and we can go, that’s the moment that everything changed. For context, I was born in the Outback and then grew up in a little fishing village from the age of eight that was incredibly isolated. And so I used to volunteer to hang out the laundry.

 

In the hope that if I sung loud enough, some tourist who was visiting our little village might hear me and whisk me away like a Disney princess to somewhere where I wasn’t living in a fishing village with 300 people. and through a series of events, by the time I was 16, I was singing with a professional-level ensemble in places like the Sydney Opera House. But part of that constellation of events also

 

Meant that there was a music teacher who didn’t like the sound of my voice. And as an adult, you look back and you go, Well, that was their aesthetic choice. They didn’t like the sound of your voice. But in those formative years, what I heard was, you can’t sing. Your voice is invalid. It sounds awful. You should be quiet. And being the stubborn person that I am, instead of accepting that what I did was withdraw from formal music lessons, ⁓

 

in the school context and actually hire private teachers and start taking lessons with teachers that understood about jazz and musical theater and things outside of the classical world where I was performing. And that became a journey for me of understanding that if you can find the right teachers who can give you the right exercises over time with practice, you can learn anything. And I might not have been the best singer, but I was certainly at certain points in my life the best trained singer I knew. And that’s what

 

gave me the ability to then break it down and teach it to others.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (04:09)

Did your world ever wrap around again to the person who didn’t believe you were a great singer?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (04:17)

In a way, I had my high school reunion last year and there was a whole group of girls there who had been a part of that cohort. And as adults, they were telling me stories of things they remembered, of cruelty that was I guess directed towards me that I’d forgotten about, you know? And they were horrified that that was allowed to happen and they were so proud of me.

 

Some of them were girls that had actually participated in that bullying as well. So it was really healing and really cool to spend time with them and we could look at it as adults and kind of go, whoa, I’d forgotten about that. Or yeah, like, you know, teenage girls are awful. Sometimes teachers are awful. And I’d so thoroughly moved on from the, you know, the idea of speaking from the scar, not the wound. ⁓ turns out twenty five years was just the right amount of time to get over it.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (05:01)

Yeah.

 

There you have it. And speaking of age, because you’re on the cusp of millennials. Mm-hmm. I’m on the cusp between baby boomers and Gene X. I’m curious, does when we were born relate to how we earn our voice? Is there a a difference by generation?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (05:36)

Our voice is the byproduct of a number of things, our physiology and how we learn to use the instrument, our socialization, our culture, what we hear. I feel like there’s probably very subtle components that weigh in to to shape how we use our voice, ⁓ probably with our generation. But what I’m also seeing is that change in the Gen X into

 

millennial into Gen Z, Gen Z now using their voice more as their their perception is changing based on the platforms they’re using as well. So technology didn’t play a very big role in how we used our voice in some ways. It was probably more subtle to do with the vocal habits that we had. I’ll come back to that in a sec. But what I’m seeing now with ⁓ Gen Z and Alpha is they’re seeing social media as a component of their voice. And when I say voice, I mean your words

 

The sound that you make, your body language, all forms of how you express yourself, all forms of how you communicate what’s inside you to outside you. Does that make sense?

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (06:46)

It does. And I think that’s gonna come back to something we’ll touch on later about performative expression.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (06:52)

Right. But further to your question before, what you would see is in different generations different vocal ticks. So I come from the generation of the sexy baby and the upspeak. And you probably come from a generation, definitely the one before you, with the Bacol syndrome, where where you sound like you’ve been smoking and

 

Having lots of whiskey, but that’s not that different to what came back around the the generation after mine, ⁓ millennial into zillennial, where we had ⁓ a lot of vocal fry, right? So that’s something that thoroughly gets blamed by vocal coaches on the Kardashians. I don’t know. I feel like it’s a constellation of things. ⁓ and it’s interesting because that’s a byproduct of not enough tension in the vocal folds. And so it literally conveys, if you think about

 

How w with mirror neurons, that’s something we can talk about later as well. I can feel in my body what’s happening in your body. Literally the lack of effort in someone’s throat can be felt by the person sitting across the table and interpreted as not caring.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (07:56)

I don’t feel at all anxious sitting in front of you talking to you.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (08:00)

My heart not. I’m very friendly.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (08:05)

I know, but your ability to read what’s going on based on my emphasis is is somewhat unnerving. So we’ll we’ll see how we work with that. Because you’re a you’re a performer. I mean you’ve you’ve performed as a as a singer at at Royal Albert Hall at at at Sydney Opera House. Mm-hmm. What work have you done to own your voice to own your voice? You’ve only got one voice on those stages.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (08:36)

It’s something that translates really beautifully into business and probably I didn’t know how to articulate when I was a singer, but now having gone back and studied teaching and studying psychology, I have a way of explaining it that might make sense to some of your audience. Maybe all of them, who knows? It’s the idea that if you don’t own your own voice, you’re kind of letting the team down.

 

So I sang in very elite ensembles where there’s sometimes three or eight or twelve of us. And you might have a full orchestra and you might have a full chorus as well. But I’d be part of that very small group of people that kind of are in charge of representing the voice of the composer as a collective. So as an alto, you kind of have one of the lower lines, you have one of the deeper voices. I have sung soprano, it’s not my favorite. ⁓ I don’t like being the center of attention.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (09:27)

Ha Don’t delete me, but that’s okay.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (09:28)

But you do have

 

No, that’s for the sopranos. ⁓ Leave that for the girls with the high voices. But it’s one of those things where if you don’t take ownership of your own voice and start there, you’ll undermine the entire ensemble. And if you imagine that you have a whole orchestra, a whole chorus, and suddenly you’ve got this one little group that’s doing, you know, let’s say you were doing Vivaldi’s Gloria or something like that, and someone starts to sound like they’re a honking goose.

 

You’ve ruined it for everyone, not just on the stage, but in the audience as a collective. So that’s the first thing. You have to own your own voice. Then you have to learn to blend with those next to you. Because even if you’re singing in tune, you have to learn to blend so that as an ensemble of that size, it becomes a homogenous sound. So everything sounds really smooth and beautiful together. So then you have to listen to the person next to you while holding on to your own voice and blend with them.

 

And then when it comes to things like dynamics, do we get louder, do we get softer, you know, what’s the pace? You then have to listen to the whole ensemble. So there’s your voice in your head, there’s the voice next to you, then there’s the voice of the whole collective. And so when I think about finding my voice with the maturity that came from performing at that elite level, it was about learning to own your voice and the importance of getting on with others and working well with others because

 

It’s never just one person on stage. Like not not in stages that size. If you’re playing in a pub with a guitar, that’s fine. Knock yourself out. But if you’re playing at that level, you’re not one person, you’re part of an ensemble. And so you have to think of yourself as part of a collective as well as taking ownership of yourself. So

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (11:12)

So

 

you could be sitting here talking about how a team works together. Exactly right. Exactly the same way as as you’re talking about your voice blending. Yeah.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (11:20)

And I probably didn’t know how to articulate that well. We did spend a lot of time when I was studying in London, studying collegiate music and ⁓ stagecraft and understanding how to set up stages as performers so that the experience was good for your audience. But I wasn’t really conscious of how universal that experience was until I started working with people in business settings.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (11:41)

There you go. Well that that that raises a point because if we get into the heart of it, you’ve w you’ve worked with women who are professional, capable, articulate business leaders. But a lot of them are not using their voice or not owning their voice. Correct. What’s happening there?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (12:02)

I think you can’t underestimate two things. One, the impact of socialization. So you might have ascended to a point where now you’re a s a a deputy or a CIO, CEO, CFO. So a lot of the technical people, they’re my people. Yeah. There’ll still be a component of you that still thinks of yourself the way you did when you were a child or a teenager. Those versions of you come with you. And if something happens in that moment that puts you back into that component of your identity.

 

That’s the voice you will use. And if so your teenager thinks, ⁓ no one’s gonna listen to what I’ve got to say, even if you’re at the board table holding the talking stick with everyone’s attention and all the gravity in the room directed at you, if you don’t take that and step into your adult voice, you’re gonna show up as a teenager or the child. I had a client that had a pretty big profile as the ⁓ ultimately the CIO of a very multi billion dollar fund.

 

And she told me when she first started with me how she’d sit at the boardroom table knowing that people wanted to hear from her. But when it was her time to speak, she fell into what she called the white hole. And that’s something that I would say is her experience of something called the amygdala hijack. Have you heard that term?

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (13:20)

I have heard you talk about it but please share shares and details.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (13:24)

So your amygdala’s this little nut shaped part of your brain that doesn’t understand time or context. So let’s say you had a traumatic

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (13:33)

People who object by that all the time.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (13:36)

There’s some people where that might be all they’ve got. I’m joking, that’s not true, you’d be dead. So ⁓ that little part of your brain is very, very old from a from a human development perspective, but it’s the part of us that says, this feels dangerous. Get ready for action. Now it might have learnt that it felt dangerous from something that happened in childhood or earlier in your life.

 

Because it doesn’t understand time or context, it doesn’t have the ability to say, no, but hang on, I’m a grown-up, everyone respects me, I’m safe, whatever. So first the amygdala says, get ready for action. This feels dangerous. It triggers behaviors that we would call fight, flight, freeze, or fall, and there you go. And what a lot of people don’t talk about though is what comes after that. Then you have cortisol that goes, actually it’s okay, you you don’t need to run.

 

You don’t need to go anywhere, you’re safe. So the cortex comes online, you start to think creatively, hopefully you start to think creatively, you start to think contextually. And then you’ll have this big dip afterwards of these low feelings.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (14:44)

White space.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (14:46)

Yeah. Anywhere in there, I think I would say the whole thing is like a wave crashing on her. So that big dip can be shame, embarrassment, self-doubt. And obviously I have tools that I teach people how to navigate that both from a physiological and psychological perspective. But I think it can be so enormous that wave of your brain feeling like something’s dangerous. Yeah. That that it just feels like a wave and you’re taken out.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (15:14)

And that would not be uncommon. No. Particularly if you’re delivering some some some news that is less than than ideal or or trying to push push forward an idea that you know there’s gonna be resistance.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (15:29)

Even

 

just saying no. If if if teenage you is scared of what the repercussions of that’s going to be, fear is part of that constellation of things, right? Feels dangerous. I feel fearful. Fight, flight, freeze, or fall. And fawn would just be like, okay, whatever you like. Okay. Fight would be stuff you. You know. Flight would be, I’m out of here.

 

If you don’t want to do it my way, my way or the highway. You know, you see these people that are really uncompromising in business. That’s a defence mechanism.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (16:04)

And do men and women experience this amyg amygdala amygdala hijack amygdala hijack differently?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (16:11)

No, it’s physiologically the same for all of us. We all have a little nut inside our brain that tells us this is dangerous, get ready for action. What I would say is different is the socialization around it, perhaps how we’ve been taught to handle it. You know, there’s a long history of men being taught, you know, you have to be brave, you have to be bold, you have to fight, you have to behave this way. Whereas women are being told you need to be compliant, you need to be easy to get on with, you need to be nice.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (16:38)

I’ve heard that. I’ve never listened to it, but I haven’t heard it.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (16:41)

I’ve heard it happens too. I do my best to let my children just choose their own adventure with that one.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (16:49)

There

 

you go. Well, here’s something I find I I do find confronting, and I really want your honest take on it, because in many instances we find it’s men champion women’s voices, not another woman championing another female. What why is that? What’s going on there?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (17:10)

I actually have been thinking about this a lot lately because I experienced someone recently in the workplace just being absolutely horrible. And I was so shocked because it was someone who’d built a profile publicly on championing women. And it’s literally all over their marketing. Yeah. And and then when this incident happened, I was so shocked because it beast seemed so disparate with their public persona.

 

And on reflection I realize that any workplace you walk into where people say, This place is great. It’s like a family. That’s a red flag because some families treat treat treat each other awfully. Right. And so I was thinking about I I don’t think there’s any been any research about correlating these two ideas. I didn’t have time to look. Really?

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (18:03)

Interesting point D.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (18:05)

But if you look at the interpersonal dynamics in a workplace and the interpersonal dynamics within a family, if you had a family where there was a deficit of things like emotional support, strong boundaries, clear expectations, structures on how we do things around here in a clear culture.

 

It is a pretty dysfunctional family. And so the siblings will fight and they’ll be competitive. And they’ll always be looking for who can get ahead and who can prove themselves and how to have one up. Whereas if you have a family with good boundaries, clear culture, lots of love, lots of grace, the siblings are more likely to get on, more likely to be loving, more likely to platform each other and want to work together. Right. So how is that from a social psychology perspective any different from an organization where historically

 

Even if women are getting opportunities now, historically they’re starting from a lower base in that they haven’t had the support and resources that men have got. So even if things are starting to tip now and the scales are evening up, we still have a history of women having a deficit of resources. And I think that that might be something worth looking at as an explanation for that.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (19:14)

And we’ve got the added complication now of AI dipping back into history as it’s learning. And all of this is all the things that we’ve been trying to put to bed and move on from get bubbled up because AI’s learning has been ingesting all this information of past and I think that threatens to bring it back to the fore.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (19:37)

I I would also say that I’m not an expert in AI. I I work with a lot of people who are literally at the forefront of this industry, mostly because I love working with geeks and really highly technical people and helping them translate their technical messages into something that normies like me can understand. ⁓ but what I do understand is that AI learns from us. And if that behavior is still happening in the corners of the internet and it’s getting clicks and platform and attention, that will inform

 

the learning that it develops. So it’s not even in the past die. It’s still happening now. Even if the bubbles so what’s happening is humans are becoming more siloed. We live more and more in our own bubbles. The algorithms reinforce that. And so our sense of reality is more and more becoming just what we see and what we know and and it feeds itself. So we start to think that that’s all there is. We’re kind of in a way creating our own villages again. And

 

If that stuff’s happening outside of our sphere of understanding, but AI is sweeping the whole of the internet, the whole of the internet will inform how the AI robot develops its logic. Yeah. Yeah. I just a caveat there, as I said, not an expert in AI. This is what I’ve gleaned. If if I’ve given the robot a name when in fact it’s a piece of software.

 

You’ll excuse me. I did have Siri jump in on a conversation the other day in the car. She was uninvited. She wouldn’t work when I wanted her to. But then I said to my daughter something about Siri being a robot. She said, actually, I’m not a robot. I’m a piece of software. Shut up. I don’t understand. I said, play the song, shut up and dance with me. I don’t understand what you want me to do. Shut up. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (21:20)

Yeah, then that’s gonna increase as I understand.

 

Yeah. I’m not not I’m not gonna contextualize that further. We could we could do ourselves a disservice.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (21:36)

You

 

know you can choose the voice though, right? There’s a really sexy male Irish one. Sometimes I think about putting him on just so that I can have someone say nice things to me in a sexy male Irish accent.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (21:39)

Yeah ⁓ thank you.

 

That’s really sad.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (21:50)

Voice does affect us, right? And this is why I feel on some level quite safe because because of the way our brains work, AI can replicate some components of the human voice, but to date it can’t replicate exactly the experience of the human voice. So I often think about all the songs where it says your voice does something to me, your voice makes my heart beat fast, your voice makes me want to so far.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (22:16)

Well, I imagine for your husband living with you with a with a trained voice in the same way as I my my partner, my husband, has a highly trained voice. Mm-hmm. And knowing how to use that can be extremely powerful. We’re at a disadvantage. Well I’m at a disadvantage. Your husband may be at the same disadvantage. Well I am.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (22:34)

You’re assuming he listens to me.

 

Twenty five years of marriage. I think I’m starting to get some cutthroat.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (22:44)

Well that’s an interesting point. So let’s let’s get back to you you talked about the woman hitting the white space. ⁓ and that can happen to any any one of us when we’re standing in front of a microphone. Yeah. Presenting on ⁓ on a on a stage. What is she is she afraid of? Is she afraid of the audience reaction or is she afraid of her own voice?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (23:13)

love that question because it’s one of those things that helps me realize I do know something that’s useful. I think you have to zoom out even further and understand that it starts with fear. That’s the common thing there. The logic of what she’s afraid of takes a different part of the brain. Right? So all she’s feeling first is fear. And yeah, it doesn’t matter what she’s fearful of. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (23:38)

Everything else is irrelevant.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (23:43)

And then you can unpack it, you know, where did that fear come from? What is it that you’re fearful of? But this is where we understand from research self talks really, really important because all of our actions ultimately start with a thought. Right? Whether it’s a subconscious or an automatic thought or a conscious thought, it starts with a thought. So you can feel the fear. You you remember that book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I think it’s it’s it’s really a book about self talk.

 

Right. It’s about right, you feel the fear in your body and now what do you do? So ⁓ that feeling, if you kind of let it wash over you, lasts about ninety seconds is a keynote talk I give where I I still get that every time I go on stage and my hands sweat like they are now and they shake.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (24:31)

Is that not a good thing though? That that is. Well I think that gets you ready and you’re that’s the competitive edge that needs to do you to do your best.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (24:33)

I think it’s

 

Yeah. ⁓ it’s about do you let that physical sensation and your subsequent interpretation of that drive the bus? Or do you choose how you want to handle that? So I’ve been working with some of the guys at the Air Force and they can, you know, fly a plane, no problem. But when it comes to getting up and speaking, that shortness of breath that came with the release of adrenaline that said, something’s gonna happen, get ready for action. Remember the amygdala?

 

I said to them, is there a way where you can trigger that before you go on stage? So that you’ve had that 90 seconds, you’ve let it wash over you, and you’re on the other side of it. Where, huh, this is like you’ve got to remember most audiences want you to do well. I can’t think of a single audience that wants to see you fail, right? Yeah. So if you can get into the mindset of, look, at least 30% of the people in this room are gonna love me, they’re gonna think I’m great. Maybe 30% are on the fence and 30%

 

Just wanna be doing their shopping, getting their toenails clipped, literally anything else, just don’t want to be here at this conference. And intuitively what we want to do is focus on the thirty percent of the people that are giving us the dodgy vibes because we wanna try and win them over. Because we’re herd animals. We want to bring people into the herd. That’s the mistake. You’ve got to focus on the people that love you. The people that are like, You’re amazing, we want you to do so well, you’re so great. Because what what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna draw the attention to that really nice

 

virtuous cycle that we have with them and the people that are kind of on the fence will go, ⁓ that’s where the fun’s at. I’m going over there. So that’s how you end up with most of the audience on side.

 

Sorry. That was a left hand turn. I didn’t see us going there. There was a

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (26:25)

And I was just I was just wondering which one you’d gone back to when you did that. So

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (26:34)

Well that that’s what shouting ⁓ as an audience sounds like when you’re right on top of a microphone. Because if I actually shouted into your microphone, like I’d blow blow blow it up. Yeah, I’m pretty I’m pretty loud. This is me at about a two.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (26:50)

Well I’m talking with Emmanuella Grace and coming up we’re going to talk about what it takes to reframe your voice.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcast, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

 

How far can you project your voice?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (27:17)

I’ve never really tested it, but there’s this thing called the singer’s format. So I get asked a lot about my accent. Would you like to ask me about my accent? It’s a hot

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (27:26)

Your accent is a complete mishmash of there’s a tinge of an American, there’s a European, there’s there’s this good old Australian within the mix. Again I put that down to generational because I think anybody millennial and b and below has an American tinge coming into their more performative or spoken voice.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (27:52)

So what you’re hearing as American is actually called twang. And it’s a sound that I use to help project my voice with very little effort.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (28:02)

So it’s deliberate?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (28:03)

It’s the byproduct of probably twenty to thirty years of training and also we speak Norwegian at home. So if you look at how the American accent developed, you have Irish, Italian, Norwegian, they’re all languages and accents that really pronounce their R. Mm-hmm. And the tongue shape sits in a way where the sound bounces up and forward. Whereas with the Australian accent, our tongue’s a lot flatter and further down at the back of our throat forward.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (28:29)

More with feasure than I do.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (28:32)

forward. Yeah. ⁓ so what you what you’re seeing is the the dorsum or the back side of the tongue is up towards your molars and then it kind of waves forward and the tip of the tongue lands behind the lower teeth. And what that does is relieve pressure from the from the throat and it makes it easier for your voice to resonate. But there’s also this idea called the singer’s formant, which is what opera singers or classically trained singers use, which I was originally, which when you’re having to do music that is not amplified,

 

You have to go to a concert hall, and then you have to go to this venue, have to go to that venue. And between venues, you have to create a consistent sound. So this singer’s format enables you to change the ⁓ angle of a a part of your throat called the aeroepoglottic schwinker. I don’t expect you to remember that. ⁓ which changes the resonance of the voice and can make it bounce further or less by adding more frequencies within the sound of the voice. So that

 

twangy sound that you hear makes a clearer sound, it makes it easier for people’s ears to hear it, I could remove it. There would be less of it. But you would have to work harder subconsciously to hear me.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (29:41)

I’m still trying to remember a mix of the hijack and you throw that at me. So there you see that he’s getting really true.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (29:51)

Now you can see why I get on with these technical geeks, right? It’s there’s so much about how do you take something really technical, like sound waves or anatomy, and translate it into something that can be understood by someone who doesn’t have training that doesn’t have the time, they just need the information and need to apply it.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (30:07)

Wow. So let’s see how much of that has got something to do with reclaiming our voice. So we’ll get into it because I want to talk to you about what’s happening in the body when when fear kicks in. Because it’s not just mindset, is it? It’s more than that.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (30:23)

Hundred percent, it’s physiologically as well. So you have a thought, which is psychological. You have your mind, which is how we interpret it. Okay. And then you have what does your body do with that? And one of the first places that people often feel that is in their throat, because our throat naturally starts to close as a way of protecting the lungs. Right? So you can have a brain that’s no longer functioning and your body, your organism organism is technically still alive.

 

Mm. But if you’re not breathing, that’s it. The show’s over. And so the body is going to intuitively protect the lungs and the part of you that’s breathing.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (31:02)

And that’s when we’ve got no chance of speaking.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (31:05)

No, and so and so this is where so much of the work to be done around finding your voice, I believe, is psychological. It’s about first getting command of your mind. I I talk about this idea all the time that high executive function leads to high executive presence. Yeah. Right. So a lot of the time f I I ended up doing this job

 

As a result of the frustration I felt when I went to lovely events and barbecues with my husband who’s in the finance world and spoke to his very introverted peers, ’cause all of us would end up in a corner drinking wine trying not to c talk to anyone and I would ask them

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (31:46)

Three four dinner. ⁓

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (31:48)

You

 

know, ⁓ how did you find the public speaking training? You just had your bank spend, you know, four K per head for the last two days on and I’m like, it’s good to have a day off but, you know, the best part for me was the ten minutes where I had a one on one training session. I was like, Good lord, why don’t we just do that with everyone then? Yeah. You know, I can save we we can do it for that much. And so, ⁓ until that point I’d had a vocal coaching company in London and then in Melbourne and then we started saying, Okay, let’s coach everyone.

 

Mm. Let’s have a department that’s f you know, the d the deans and the the research guys and the quant analysts. Give them the superpower.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (32:26)

Although Well

 

and that’s the interesting point. You’re talking about ⁓ positions and character traits and and if I think of possibly CIOs, engineers, even CFOs, I often think those individuals tend to be introverts more readily than extroverts. But most of us would believe that extroverts are better at getting on stage or standing out front.

 

I’m speaking. But I think you say experience tells us a different story.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (32:57)

Yes, and

 

Yes. So there is an idea in the public speaking world that actually the most intr interesting speakers are the introverts. I would say that the bias that extroverts are have more to offer is a byproduct of the post industrial revolution where ⁓ we were living in a world where we had to rebuild after two wars and we had to really give a lot of credence to the people with the gift of the gap because they could get things done faster and bigger and

 

And ⁓ but not necessarily more sustainably, right? Yeah. And so the deep thinkers, the philosophers, the value of these people, the perception of their value is diminished in that era. And we’re kind of living in the after effects of that now. Have you read Quiet by Susan Kane? my God. If you are an introvert, buy the book. It’s so good. And if you’re not feeling like reading a whole book, go and watch her TED Talk. It’s 17 minutes. It’s good for you.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (33:50)

No I

 

And

 

as an extrovert? What would somebody get out of it?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (34:04)

As much. You know. Okay, I was going to say something snarky. No, no, I’ll it’s not about you. More about my husband. Yeah. He’s gorgeous and he gets away with a lot because he is. But culturally Yeah. He’s he’s ⁓ you know, marry your best mate, right? It’s been twenty four years of of twenty four, twenty five years, good Lord, of us being together and probably about

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (34:09)

Not I’m not defining myself as

 

to get into the sidehouse.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (34:33)

12, 13 years into our relationship, we just had this weekend where I was like, my God, I’m so done. There’s all these things that I should be looking forward to, and I’m just feeling really anxious. And so I picked up a bottle of wine and a copy of Quiet and I said, I am going to the park and reading this book. And you are going to go to all the parties. Because what we’d started to realize was he was a shy extrovert. So shyness comes from fear and comes from conversation.

 

culture and comes from being told to behave a certain way to be socially acceptable.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (35:03)

word put together but I totally relate to that.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (35:06)

Yeah. So for him there was a fear response. So my girlfriends used to say to me, Does he talk? And I’d like, Yeah, not to you. But he loves being around people. He loves being in the middle of everything. He loves interacting. I’m just like, Good Lord, when can we leave? ⁓ it’s really lovely to see you, but I’d rather have three people over for dinner and we have some really deep discourse. And I could do that all day, no problem. And then I’ll, you know, people know

 

When we have big parties at our house, after a while I might just wander off and read a book. And that’s fine. I throw a good party, everyone else is having fun. But I’m quite a confident introvert. Music has taught me skills that enable me to communicate with both individuals and giant audiences alike with confidence. But it does take something from you, something I’m willing to give, something I love giving. But I do also need time to reboot up.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (36:03)

Yeah, I can relate to that. Nothing nothing I crave more than just some complete silence and me time.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (36:11)

And you might be an ambivert as well. That’s someone who ’cause it’s a spectrum, right? If you imagine extroversion at one end and introversion at the other. And a lot of the people that I work with that are let’s say they’re working in a very technical environment but they’re known as the one that everyone gets on with and everyone really respects, they’re obviously somewhere in the middle.

 

Yep. And so what can happen is they’re really good at the pitching stage and they get really social and they have a great time, but then they don’t allow themselves that rebooting time that they also need. And so a lot of the work we do together is planning to manage your energy so that you have your peak energy when you’re in front of your audience and then you have time to also regroup.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (36:50)

No different training as an athlete. Same scenario.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (36:52)

Well, I was actually trained by a sports psychologist as a musician.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (36:56)

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So we touched on it before because we are in an era where performative behaviour is absolutely increasing. I’m seeing it everywhere. But there’s a difference between learning to project sound and reclaiming the thing that is that is yours. What does it mean to find your voice and how do you know when somebody has actually nailed it?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (37:24)

I was thinking about that this week. There’s a word that has had such a thorough bashing, I’m loath to use it, but it is at the heart of this, I think you can guess. It and it’s authenticity, right? Yeah. But sorry for those of you on the other end of that microphone.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (37:35)

Go on.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (37:46)

You can feel it.

 

Yeah, look, I can’t I I use AI sometimes to check for spelling mistakes, but I given

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (37:54)

Yeah, so let’s kick my a that

 

quick cause I’m gonna give you permission.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (37:58)

To So I I think you can feel it, right? Let’s talk about do you know what a mirror neuron is? It’s so interesting. ⁓ it’s this neuron in our brain and deficit of them in sociopaths and psychopaths, which I think is interesting. But for example, Di, if I kicked my toe, you’d feel it. Or if I leaned on a hot hot plate on the on the oven, you can feel that because your body

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (38:03)

Not really.

 

Yeah.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (38:26)

is simulating inside you what I’m experiencing. Now if I am a fr Well, you know, apparently they’re the only people that can tickle themselves. ⁓ But can’t use that one at work. And No. but heads, shoulders, knees and ⁓ toes.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (38:32)

Afraid just isn’t

 

Wow.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (38:55)

What are we teaching? Right. For those of you listening at home, Di I have just gone off on a tangent on how to behave at work. ⁓ heads, shoulders, knees and toes is a rule that they teach children at school on appropriate touching. I don’t know. I don’t really want anyone touching my toes at work.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (39:13)

I don’t want it touching my toes just quite apart from part from my my manicures, but yeah.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (39:21)

Yes. Well if your manicurist is touching your toes.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (39:24)

She’s

 

in the spot. Yeah, thank you.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (39:26)

Getting this back on track. ⁓ you can feel the fraud. I had a meeting years and years ago with ⁓ one of the representatives at the record label I was with and I took him some songs. And he was just like, Well, these are technically good, but I feel nothing. And then he played me some songs and he said, This girl’s fourteen and you just

 

Your stomach dropped when you heard her and it just moved you so much it turned out to be a young adult. And he said, you know, g go go to some music festivals, go camping, take some drugs, and then write some songs about that. And I thought, Well, I don’t camp and I don’t take drugs, but I went away and wrote about other things that I knew, things that were really painful that I was ready to talk about. And they were the songs that were nominated for awards and were used on films and ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (39:59)

Wow.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (40:23)

think the easy songs the songs that are written quickly are sometimes the best because we’re not getting in our own way. But they’re not always the easy songs to write.

 

That’s your voice, right? But you have to choose how much of that you want to share and and that’s the mastery of it, right? That’s the craft is learning how do I demonstrate being candid and being real ⁓ but also keep some of myself for myself because we don’t want to emotionally vomit on everyone.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (40:52)

Yeah, and that’s that’s an interesting point because it it’s that’s one one part of this exercise that we’re talking about of how to find your voice. But to your point, how much of it we want to share. That’s that’s something that I personally struggle with and you know, it’s suggested that we need to do more of that in terms of elevating our own brand, but sometimes I I struggle with that.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (41:05)

Right.

 

Yeah, my coach constantly pushes me about that as well. But I think it might be different for dudes as well. Like maybe they don’t have such a deep understanding of their emotional landscape, so maybe they don’t have as much to share. No. But I I don’t know. That’s not really something I think that much about. But I do think that there’s a lot to be said when it comes to resonance.

 

And and if you can feel that your voice is resonating with another person, like if your your mirror neurons and my mirror neurons are vibrating together. Yeah. I think that that’s where you’re moving from being technically correct. Like you can order a coffee, the data is correct. I can give you an analysis of something that’s happened. Versus me having mastered the ability to share that information and share that experience. So when I went to uni,

 

What I saw when I came over to Australia to do my masters was that there was a demographic of students that were technically brilliant. But when we moved from doing an honors degree or a bachelor degree into doing a masters, they really struggled because they ha that’s where you start to have to be an artist. You have to have mastery of the music beyond the technical components. You have to start to have your own perspectives and your own interpretations of things and your own ⁓ discovery around what did the

 

Composer want here. And now what do you want this to mean? Right? So you start to have some agency. And these students had only been taught you just keep practicing until you’re perfect. They hadn’t been taught what happens beyond that. And I think that’s life. Yeah, but I also think that’s finding your voice, right? Is that I say to people, look, when it comes to communication skills, if you can order a coffee, you’re conveying data from one person to another, job done. But if you’re looking to influence a movement, that’s something else.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (42:48)

Yeah.

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (43:06)

And that’s the area that I want to play in. How do we move people? How do we while you still feel like you’re you, you’re not becoming jazz hands and shouty. Even in your beautiful, quiet way, how do you bring that gravity into the room where people feel psychologically safe with you and they feel motivated and they feel moved? Because we know from research that people don’t have to agree with a leader to believe in them and want to follow them. So it’s about how do these leaders

 

Demonstrate to their cohort, demonstrate to their peers, demonstrate to the board they’re trustworthy. And that’s moving beyond conveying data from one person to the other.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (43:45)

That’s getting really masterful in on your OS. Well, before we wrap, I’ve got a a couple of rapid fire questions that I’m going to shoot at you today. What’s a lesson you had to learn the hard way?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (44:03)

Not everyone’s going to like you and that’s okay.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (44:06)

I I’m still on that gym. What’s the most BS thing women are being told about how to communicate?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (44:16)

To focus on the end product first, like your pitch, your pace, your volume, your gestures. It’s never going to work if you start at the wrong end and work backwards. You have to start internally and work outward.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (44:29)

And where and when are you most yourself?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (44:33)

In my garden with the kids.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (44:35)

There we go. Yeah. Beautiful. Finding your voice or find your voice is your business. And where do we find you?

 

EMMANUELLA GRACE [GUEST] (44:41)

Find your voice.

 

Just ⁓ Emmanuel Grace dot com or find your voice dot com dot AU either of those things will get you to me. Or LinkedIn.

 

DI GILLETT [ HOST] (44:52)

Brilliant.

 

Well, I have learned a whole lot of words that I can’t pronounce today. But I’m going to put them in the show note and and probably need to put a link on a a few of them because they are beyond my voice to even pronounce some of those. They are quite quite wordy. But seriously, thank you for your honesty and depth in understanding that. There really is a a mastery around how to find your voice and and what you were touching on toward the close of today of

 

You know, you can have a degree taking it to that next level to really invoke change, go beyond the ordering of a coffee to actually inspire piperish behaviour and have everybody follow you off the cliff is a whole different different ball game. Yeah. So much of that can be done in your voice. So thank you for that, Emmanuella. Thank you. I ⁓

 

I’d love you to share this episode with somebody in in your network because I think finding our voice is something so many of us really do need to to get a grasp on and at different points in time we know we stand there and we see that white space and we’ve lost it. So please share that. You can follow both of us on on LinkedIn. Both of us hang out there quite a bit and write a review because that’s what propels these podcasts and allows others to find us. Until next time.

 

Chapters

00:00 The Power of Women: Introduction

01:58 Emanuela Grace: A Journey to Finding Her Voice

06:10 Generational Perspectives on Voice Ownership

14:10 Navigating Fear and the Amygdala Hijack

17:48 Women Supporting Women: The Dynamics of Workplace Relationships

22:00 The Role of AI in Shaping Voices and Perceptions

25:31 The Virtuous Cycle of Audience Engagement

29:39 Understanding Voice Projection and Accents

30:25 The Connection Between Mind and Body in Voice

32:07 Understanding Introversion and Extroversion in Communication

36:59 Authenticity and Finding Your Voice

43:32 Mastering Authentic Communication

 

Connect with Di:

Connect with Di on LinkedIn

Follow Power Of Women on LinkedIn

Follow Di on Instagram

The Power Of Women Podcast Instagram

Contact Di

 

Find Emmanuella at:

Website https://findyourvoice.com.au

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuellagrace/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/emmanuella_grace/

 

This is the home of unapologetic conversations and powerful stories of reinvention. New episodes drop every 2nd Monday to fuel your week with insights on leadership, resilience, and success. Subscribe and join a community of women who are changing the game.

 

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Disclaimer:  https://powerofwomen.com.au/podcast-disclaimer/

The Psychology of Financial Scams, Romance Scams & Who’s Vulnerable

The Psychology of Financial Scams, Romance Scams & Who’s Vulnerable

by | Aug 24, 2026 | Financial Safety

How does a sophisticated scammer work? What is the psychology behind intimate fraud, and why does it succeed against smart, capable, accomplished people?

Tracy Hall is an international keynote speaker, author of The Last Victim, and one of Australia’s leading voices in scam prevention. In 2016, she became the last known victim of Hamish McLaren — one of Australia’s most prolific conmen, a man who weaponised psychology, manufactured trust, and ran the same intimate fraud playbook for years. Tracy lost $317,000. Her superannuation. She was one of 15 Australian victims, and what was even more challenging, was she was in a romantic relationship with him.

McLaren operated his fraudulent activities over a 30-year period across four continents.

In this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, Di Gillett and Tracy Hall break down the psychology of scams from the inside out. How do conmen identify and exploit vulnerability? What does trust literacy look like as a practical skill? And what does it mean to rebuild a life, not just adequately, but powerfully, after financial and emotional betrayal?

Scam losses in Australia exceeding $3B annually, hence this conversation is essential.

 

➡️You’ll Hear :

  • How a 30-year professional fraudster constructed an 18-month romantic relationship designed to extract Tracy’s life savings
  • The moment she found out the truth, and what her body did before her mind could catch up
  • Why the belief that “this could never happen to me” is one of the most dangerous things you can think
  • The systemic failures that allow financial crime to flourish, and who needs to be held accountable
  • Why victims of financial crime are not treated the same as victims of physical crime – and why that must change
  • The red flags that are harder to spot in the age of AI, deepfakes and real-time voice cloning
  • What rebuilding looks like when you go from a 1 to an 8 on your own recovery scale.

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Everyone has a window of vulnerability. It is not a character flaw – it is a human condition. The question is whether the right person finds it at the right time.
  • Trust literacy is not suspicion. It is holding trust and critical thinking in the same hand, and it is a skill you can build.
  • Urgency is a weapon. If someone is pressing you to move fast – with money, with data, with decisions – slow down. The emergency is manufactured.
  • When you are wearing rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags are just flags. Awareness of your own emotional state is a protection tool.
  • Self-compassion. In the aftermath of betrayal, it is the most important thing you can give yourself.
📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:05)

Tracy, power of women, what does that mean to you?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (00:10)

When I hear the word women, I think about a collective, not just one. And I think women are very powerful together. So for me it’s about how we come together and use that all of that to, you know, create the change that we want.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:25)

I think that is exemplified by exactly why we’re sitting here today. It was Catherine Fitzpatrick and the wonderful work that she’s doing who introduced the two of us. So I think t to y to your point, the collective of women is such a powerful thing.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (00:40)

Yes, I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw that question because I thought, you know, how did I get here? And it was because somebody had advocated for me and and it was Catherine and I’m very grateful for that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (00:53)

As am I. Welcome to the Power Of Women Podcast. I’m Di Gillett and most podcasts tell you what’s possible. This one tells you what it took to get there. In every conversation I delve further to remind you you are not alone, and to back something I believe in fiercely that women supporting women is not just a sentiment. It’s the decision we make every single day. Let’s get into it.

 

Today’s conversation is about trust betrayal and the business of fraud prevention. And the woman who understands this better than most is Tracy Hall. Tracy encountered Max Tavita in 2016, who we now know by his real name, Hamish McLaren. McLaren is one of Australia’s most prolific conmen.

 

15 Australian victims and an estimated 7.6 million in losses locally. And when investigators followed the thread globally, that number climbed somewhere nearer to a hundred million. He cost Tracy $317,000. Today Tracy is a global educator, author, keynote speaker, and an advocate traveling the world to ensure what happened to her happens to fewer people.

 

She has turned the worst chapter of her for life into a career that is genuinely protecting others. Joining me from Sydney in Australia, TRACY HALL welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN Podcast.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (02:37)

Thanks, Di It’s so nice to be here.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (02:40)

Tracy, before we get started with what happened in 2016 I want to start with who you were before all of this hit the fan.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (02:51)

Yes, well it was twenty sixteen. I had just turned forty and I was working for eBay. I had a pretty big marketing executive role, running a big team, I was dealing with international colleagues, I was running campaigns, I was looking after a big budget, I had built a pretty pretty successful career at this stage and I had you know, a five year old at home.

 

I was single parenting at the time. I was busy. but I was very much engrossed in my career, what I was doing there and and looking forward to kind of the second half of my life, I guess you could say.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (03:31)

Mm-hmm. And you separated from your husband in 2015. You turned 40 the following year. Online dating’s something that interests me, and I know I dabbled in it briefly with a couple of girlfriends not for the dating purposes but in in fact setting up an online offline dating service with a whole lot of probity issues in place. But

 

Can you tell me where were you emotionally when you decided to try online dating?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (04:07)

Optimistic and I was curious. I guess when I had met my husband and become engaged and married, dating apps didn’t exist, so it was very new to me. So that’s where the curiosity came from. I was pretty clear at the time that I wasn’t looking for another husband. I didn’t want to be swept off my feet. I was in my early 40s at this stage, so I was pretty resigned to the fact that I wasn’t gonna have any more children.

 

So it was really about meeting somebody for me that had similar values and interests, somebody who I could spend some time with on weekends and just that companionship that I guess I was missing. and I think that’s a very normal human emotion is is to want to connect and and and find that love and connection with somebody else. So I think it was all of those things. I was pretty realistic about it. I knew that, or I’d heard stories that things

 

were interesting on the dating app. So I went in with a level of pragmatism, I guess you could say. And sometimes I met people that I thought, you know what, I’m not gonna end up in a relationship with this person, but they’re really good company. They’re very interesting. And, you know, it’s harder to meet people when you get older. And, you know, when you’re working hard and you’re single parenting. It is kind of difficult to meet new people. So I sort of went in at like that too. I thought, you know what?

 

If I just meet some interesting people along the way, then that’s a win as well as I was rebuilding my confidence to get back out into that world. So they were all the things I was I was feeling at the time and and I think that’s what I went into it with, an open mind.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (05:47)

And your point about it’s much harder to meet people when you’re older. I I was out at a at the Fran Lebowitz concert this week and I actually introduced two of my girlfriends who are over sixty who don’t know each other. Turns out they live down the road from each other. They both walk their dogs in the same dog park on a on a daily basis.

 

And they’re gonna reconnect and and do that. But I don’t think those opportunities, you know, heterosexually or romantically are easily found as we get older. So something like that really gives me joy.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (06:25)

It does. You know one thing I realized when I became single at forty and separated from my husband was I stopped being invited to weekend barbecues and dinners and things like that and I’ve heard

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (06:40)

A million

 

reasons why we could delve into what’s behind it.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (06:43)

Yeah,

 

and I and I’ve never really thought too much about it, but I know it’s a thing. And I’m not you know, I I don’t hold any, you know, feelings towards people who do that, but it was very it was very it was a very stark realisation to me at the time that I was no longer invited to these things where I would interact and meet with other people. And so you do have to take things into your own into your own hands and and find ways to meet. And unfortunately dating outs was where it was at.

 

Back in twenty sixteen.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (07:13)

Yeah. So tell me about Max, not not Hamish McLaren, but but Max Tavita. How did he present himself to you?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (07:21)

He presented himself as a finance executive, so he said he was a chief financial officer, and an investment officer for a family trust and he worked for a company. He spoke to me about all of the the families that he was investing money for, and that was his professional line of work. He had told me all about what he had done in New York, he’d probab he told me he had been working overseas for many, many years, sixteen years.

 

in the finance world and told me many, many stories and examples of that. And then personally he presented himself as a really I guess worldly but down to earth Aussie guy. You know, he loved running, he loved surfing. He grew up on the beaches of Sydney, in the same kind of era as me in the late seventies, early eighties. So we had a lot of kind of cultural references

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (08:16)

Sounds

 

so profitable. Sounds so real.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (08:19)

It it felt it felt very real, everything lined up and you know, he was he was very down to he was really funny, you know, he had a great sense of humor, there was good banter, and you know, that that was appealing to me and and we got along really well.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (08:36)

Sociopaths seem to be entertaining until until they turn. Until they’re not. Mm-hmm. So do you remember the day that you found out the truth and and and how far into this relationship was that?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (08:52)

The day I found out the truth, we were about 16 months into the relationship. there are parts of that day that I remember like it was yesterday, and there are parts of that day that feel very blurry to me, probably because of the shock and and what happened. But the parts I remember were receiving a link from a girlfriend, wa which essentially was the crime stopper’s footage of him being arrested. And that is

 

etched into my memory because I had a visceral reaction to seeing him on my phone being led away by police with his face blurred out and the information that that went alongside that article online were things that I could not reconcile within my brain. Bondai businessman 47 superannuation fraud. Now to me he wasn’t a businessman. He had a job with a with a company. In my mind he was 42.

 

Because that is what he told me. And superannuation fraud. I thought, no, they’ve got it wrong. You know, and so that was a very, very surreal moment where my stomach dropped, I couldn’t feel my legs, my arms went tingly. And then it sort of snowballed into really trying to figure out what had actually happened. And there were many phone calls, text messages, I had to go and deal with the police. I received a message from his brother in law that said,

 

Call me back on this number urgently, Chris. And in brackets, he wrote Hamish’s brother-in-law. And that is the first time I’d seen his real name because no one would tell me what his real name was. And so it said Hamish’s brother-in-law, and I called him straight away and I said, Chris, who the fuck is Hamish? Who is Max Tavita? Like it was all just so messy in my brain and it was so discombobulating. And I felt like I was in a parallel universe. It was the most surreal thing. And then that sort of

 

kicked off many conversations with detectives. I spent the majority of the afternoon that day with the detectives, talking to them and and figuring out what I needed to do next. And then of course the news reports came. A bunch of my girlfriends came over and we watched it play out on the news and it was just it it was just sickening to see what was happening and then everything just sort of fell apart after that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (11:16)

Wow. So fifteen victims in Australia, a sixteen year sentence as I understand it, with with losses that extended beyond Australia and and and potentially up to a hundred million plus. When when you start mapping the full scale of what what Hamish McLaren did, what does that reveal about how these people operate and and how they can keep operating be

 

For anybody sees that red flag and calls time on it.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (11:49)

I think it’s safe to say that these people are professionals. In many cases they’ve been doing it for many, many years. And when you do something enough times over a longer period or or a long period of time, you do get very good at it. It’s very calculated. It’s meticulous. He knew exactly what he was doing. And you know, he weaponized trust, he weaponized emotion. He was incredibly sophisticated at working out

 

People’s soft spots, I would say, or the chinks in their armour, the things that they needed in their life that he could fill that and extract money from them at the same time was what he focused on, me double down. And so he was very, very good at being a chameleon. And what I mean by that is for me his name was Max Tabita. He was forty one, he was a chief investment officer for a family office, and that was his character, and this was the movie that I was in.

 

But for other victims and what I know is that for for for one victim he was a barrister. For another victim he was a triathlete. For another victim, Lisa Ho, who is a very familiar name to us, Australian fashion designer, he was a business strategist.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:04)

Holding that lie and and and having a unique story in each scenario is very difficult to do, I would have imagined.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:13)

I mean on some level incredibly intelligent, not to give him too much credit, but I don’t know about you, Di, but I I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, you know?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:24)

Like

 

hold multiple multiple lies. Let me tell you, it gets worse as you get older.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:31)

yeah. god. I need to do more brain exercises. but you know, he he just there was nothing that slipped. Everything matched, every story that he’d referenced in the past, every detail, every name, every number, every everything just matched. And so he never

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (13:48)

Guts

 

were churning with the pressure of that. I hope it ate him up inside.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (13:53)

Do you what’s interesting is that I I’ve never met anyone that slept so soundly. His head would hit the pillow and within two minutes he’d be asleep and he did not move until four o’clock the next morning.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:00)

my god.

 

Maybe that was just exhaustion from holding the line.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (14:10)

Or maybe he doesn’t have a conscience. I don’t know. I think the other thing about the reason these types of characters are so successful is because they know the system. They know where the gaps in the system are, they know how to manipulate and weaponize the system. And they also know and understand that fraud is very, very difficult to prosecute.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:31)

And they’ve made a career of it, Tracy. That’s the that’s the thing, isn’t it? But

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (14:35)

That’s it. And and they know that, you know, if they’ve stolen all the money that somebody has and it’s a it’s not considered a criminal offence and in most cases if you take these issues to law enforcement, they will say this is a civil matter, go get a lawyer and go take it through the civil courts. Now when you’ve lost your life savings, you don’t have the money to do that.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (14:57)

Mm. And the mere fact that it’s called a criminal the it’s a civil matter and not a criminal matter is a is a point we might delve into further ’cause that’s that’s problematic right there.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (15:09)

Very difficult to prove. I’m lucky in in my case that there was a detective that took on a case that landed on his desk, which was not my because of course I didn’t know what was going on when he was arrested. It was another complaint and he looked into it, he looked further, and he knew that it was something big and he essentially got permission to go and investigate it, and he did that for six months. And over that six months is when

 

Most of my money went to Hamish and he got enough evidence to know that if they arrested him, he would be bail refused and he would get a significant sentence. So that was just the tenacity of that one detective that did that. If I had got to a point where I realized I was being defrauded, I’m I’m sure that maybe the response I would have got was it’s a civil case. You know, you have freely given him, your boyfriend, that money. Go and go and get a lawyer.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (16:06)

Mm.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (16:10)

Would have

 

I’m very lucky. I’m very lucky.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (16:12)

Yeah. Yeah. So what I’m interested in I th and and I and I sit here think I’m listening to the story. You’re you’re a a business woman, a c a a senior executive, you’ve worked in in tech, you’re you’re you’re savvy about this stuff. And I and I believe I’m tech savvy, but I have to say the one thing that keeps me awake at night is the fear of clicking on that wrong wrong link and you financially exposed or

 

Or identity exposed. Most people listening believe it’ll never happen to them. Why is that dangerous?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (16:52)

I think with most things in life we don’t think that these terrible things will ever apply to us. You know, I think we are as a group of humans probably confidently and over optimistically apathetic. I would say. And we all like to think that we’re smarter than that, we’re better than that, that would never happen to me. And if I’m really honest, I I thought exactly the same thing.

 

I never thought this would be me. I’ve travelled the world. I’ve come from a good family. I’ve had a stellar education. I’ve had an incredible career. I have amazing friends. I you know, I I’ve lived a life. And you hear stories like this and you think the people that the media like to portray are quite stereotyped, you know, they’re uneducated, lonely, middle aged women that are desperate for love, you know, even even the headlines that you see. And so I’ve

 

see those stories and think, well that’s not who I am. So of course that would never happen to me. And this is unfortunately the the overoptimistic nature we have of our own ability to spot these things or to protect ourselves. And the reality is that this can happen to anyone. Because you don’t have to be uneducated, lonely, you know, it’s none of those things. In fact, intelligence has nothing to do

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:16)

I

 

mean.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (18:18)

Yeah, there’s an incredible statistic that says I think it was sixty four percent of globally of people who were victims of scams or fraud were tertiary educated. So it actually has nothing to do with intelligence. It has everything to do with how sophisticated these criminals are, the technology that they’re using, and these moments of vulnerability that we all have in our lives in any given week that they prey on and that they weaponize.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:46)

Time.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (18:47)

And I think this is a thing, we need to change the conversation. What is the criminal doing as opposed to what did the vict where was the victim at in their life when this happened to them? Yeah. You know?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (18:57)

Because that day could be any any day amongst a a raft of of days where it couldn’t happen. hence to your point, we’re focusing on the wrong thing. We’re we need to focus on on what they’re doing. So with that in mind, you you’ve spoken about the the psychological architecture of intimate fraud. And in in our efforts to turn this into some level of education to

 

to help preventing it from happening to others. Can you can you walk us through your understanding of what sophisticated scammers target to build your trust? Step and I and I would imagine it’s a step by step process.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (19:40)

It is. It does generally happen slowly and methodically and with calculation. There’s manipulation. In most cases, most stories we hear, it starts small. So they’ll build your trust by by something small and it may not even be money. They may even give you money or give you a gift. And this is all about building a relationship. And once that connection and that bond is formed, you are essentially under a spell, a spell of love.

 

In the case of a romance fraud. There are many different types of fraud, of course, but if we’re talking about this one. But if we talk more broadly, the way I like to explain sort of the psychological aspects of scams and fraud, which are the things that stay consistent regardless of whether it’s an investment scam or a romance scam or an Australia Post scam, what happens is the scammer will try and get you into a heightened emotional state. And in that heightened emotional state, you actually

 

Have less access to your logical and rational thinking. We all know this to be true. And those heightened states are things like love, is a romance fraud, excitement, hope, or love, hope, excitement, fear. Fear is the other one. So when you hear about the hey mum scam, I’ve lost my phone, that’s eliciting a fear, or you haven’t paid your bill, or the Australian federal police is calling and asking you, that elicits fear. And once you’re in this heightened emotional state, you actually you’re

 

Your logical brain is offline. What they then do is they’ll apply some urgency. It’s always urgent. Even if somebody has been grooming you for months or years, when it comes to extracting money or your identity or data, it’s always urgent. Something’s happened. We’ve got to do this quickly. We have to act on this now. And again, that’s a tactic to get you to do something in haste to not allow you to slow down and engage your rational thinking. Then they’ll play on things like biases.

 

And in my case, I had many biases going on. I have an optimism bias, which I told you I was feeling very optimistic when I went into the online dating world. And I’m naturally optimistic. If somebody tells me something, I I think the best of them, I believe what they say. I don’t question things as much as maybe somebody who’s more cynical would. I had a similarity bias. And similarity bias is the thing that says, if someone looks like you,

 

They sounds like they sound like you, they have similar values and interests to you, you are more likely to trust, believe them and fall in love with them.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (22:07)

I imagine that’s probably one of the trickiest ones to to identify and and and pluck out ’cause that’s a that’s a powerful point of connection.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (22:19)

It is. And what these nefarious characters do is that they use a technique called mirroring to build that similarity bias. So even if it’s not true, they pretend to be, you know, have the same values and thoughts as you, have the same outlook on life. And certainly Hamish did this with me. He you know, there were certain parts of it that were authentic. You know, he loved running, he loved surfing, he loved being at the beach. But all he had to do was listen to the things I was saying about what did I what I wanted for my future, how I wanted my next relationship to play out.

 

what my desires were, my what my fears were, and he just mirrored those things back to me to make me feel like, my God, I found my soulmate. I found my person. And so there are lots of biases that that get tapped into. Authority bias is one. In in Hamish’s case, he presented himself as a chief financial officer that spoke about the financial markets all the time. But you might get a phone call from who you believe to be the ATO.

 

Now that is authority bias because we are very, very abiding citizens here in Australia and generally around the world we are. If someone from a government authority calls you and says you need to do something quickly, most people will do it. And so there are the biases, and then finally we have what we spoke about before we have vulnerability. And vulnerability is not just lonely people looking for love on the internet. Vulnerability could be you didn’t sleep well last night. It could be you’ve got jet lag. It could be you’ve got

 

15 things going on at once and you’re trying to do everything really quickly. You know, it it could be a number of things. Maybe you’ve had a big night and you’re hung over. Maybe you’ve had a baby. It just there are so many different vulnerabilities that we all have at any given point in our day or week or month. And all it takes is for someone to spot that vulnerability and weaponize it, and they’re in. And that’s this is sort of the psychological anatomy of the scam. So four elements that are present in

 

every scam that I hear about. And I think it’s the recognition of those things and understanding that that is going to help protect us more in the future, more so than understanding what the Australia Post scam looks like or the Hey Mum scam, because they’ll just change and evolve over time.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (24:29)

So so given this individual weaponised trust in your world, can I can I ask what is your relationship with trust now?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (24:41)

It’s complicated because I would say that I was a person who used to trust blindly because of my optimism bias, because I had never encountered a man like Hamish, because I believe the best in people, because I default to truth and I assume honesty. But my experience with Hamish has changed that. And whilst I work very hard at not being cynical.

 

I’m definitely more skeptical now. I see the world I see the world differently. And this is my job now. So I spend all day, every day researching these things. And so I see and hear things that I probably wouldn’t ordinarily. But, you know, I I work hard at maintaining a level of trust in my own intuition. I’ve had to build that up over time because certainly my intuition did not kick in when I met Hamish because he was a professional.

 

So I’ve had to work very, very hard at trying to rebuild a connection with that. But if I’m honest, Di this is something that I work very hard at almost every single day. Because I do I never want this experience to make me cynical and cantankerous and and just viewing the world in a negative way because that’s not my natural personality, but it certainly has changed the way that I look at at the world.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (26:02)

Yeah, I have no doubt. Thank you for sharing that, Tracy. One thing we touched on earlier, you you’ve talked you touched on it, and I think it’s really important is victims of financial crime are not treated in the same way as victims of physical crime. Why in hell not?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (26:25)

I actually don’t know and this has been a surprise to me as well. And in in a lot of cases when when these things happen, you don’t know until you go through the system. You know, because why would you? And this became very, very clear to me recently. I was working with victim services because Hamish is coming up to his parole.

 

And part of that as a victim, you are entitled to write a letter and ask for some core conditions. And I w as I was doing that, I reached out to victim services and I said, Look, I’m wondering what support services are available for me. because throughout the last nine years I have funded every psychological session or psychology session I’ve had. I have funded all of the healing, I’ve I’ve done all of that off off my own dollar.

 

And I started looking into it and there is a a victim’s support scheme that potentially gives you access to psychological support. In some cases it can give you some financial support as you work through work through your your healing. And when I requested that from victim services, they told me I was not eligible. Even as a victim of financial crime.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (27:48)

And that would make you feel like a victim all over again.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (27:51)

It is re-traumatizing because my question was why not? And they s they what I came to understand was victims of violent crime. That’s what these benefits apply to, but it does not apply to victims of financial crime. Now you could argue that the psychological and financial damage of of what happens in financial crime is just as traumatic as violent crime, but it’s not seen that way in the eyes of the law. Now maybe it’s because in some of these cases it is seen as a civil

 

a civil matter. But the reality is I am a victim, I am classified as a victim of crime, financial crime. So this is this is one thing that I didn’t know that very much grinds my gears. And so what I’m doing now is to go, okay, well how do we change that? How do I bring this to the attention of the right people so that we can have that adjusted?

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (28:47)

And is that just Australia, Tracy, or is that a is that a global treatment of the definition betwi distinguishing between what is and isn’t crime?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (28:57)

There are different versions in different countries. So financial crime across the board is not seen as seriously and is not funded as well from a victim support point of view as violent crime. And you know, that could be because this is I mean, fraud is as old as day. You know, it there have been fraud cases forever and a day. What

 

What hasn’t happened is the extent and the enormity of what we’re seeing in terms of scams and fraud that this has really just kind of exploded in the last five, six, seven years. So it could be that that things are just catching up. it could be a number of reasons. I don’t understand enough about that system to to know why, but what I’m doing now is I’m trying to find the right people within.

 

with inside the system or that have the ability to change it to at least advocate for that change and explain why it’s important that we level the playing field and and get these services. So, you know, i in my the response that came back to my question was what support do I have available as I as we move towards Hemish’s parole hearing. I was given the lifeline number.

 

And I don’t I mean Lifeline is incredible service, but I’m certainly not at risk in that way in this moment. So that’s not useful for me. What would be useful is to have somebody help pay my my psych sessions because they’re really expensive.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (30:28)

‘Cause you just got fleeced, yeah. Yeah.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (30:30)

So, but these are but these are the things and and the way that I look at it dine now and and this is the the benefit of of time and space between the event and being able to have this energy and this strength to do it is that what’s done is done for me. You know, I’m not sitting here going, Why don’t I get psych support? You know, that’s done.

 

What I can do is say, how can I make it better for the next person, for the next Tracy, for the next victim of financial crime. So that’s what I’m interested in. And I’m like, I will write the policy for you. I will help your teams develop it. I will tell you what it’s like to be a victim. Use my lived experience in a way that’s going to make it better for the next person. So that’s what I’m working on at the moment.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (31:19)

Yeah, brilliant. Well, we’re gonna jump to a quick break and coming back I want you to share some insights to ensure that it never happens to another person.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. I’m talking with Tracy Hall, global educator, author, keynote speaker, and financial wellness advocate. Tracy, you coined the phrase trust literacy, which I think is incredibly powerful.

 

Can you elaborate for our listeners on what you mean by that and how do we build that as a skill?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (32:08)

Mm. I think what’s interesting about trust right now is we have never had to question it as much as we do now. We do not know what is real and what is not anymore, and I can only see that getting worse. In terms of trust literacy, the way I think about that is we have been taught financial literacy, we’ve been taught digital literacy, but no one has ever taught us how to trust, who to trust.

 

why we should trust. And I think as we move further into this world where we don’t know what is real and what is not anymore, I think it’s a really important skill to be leaning into and talking about. I think we assume trust. You know, it’s just something that you think it’s just there. You look someone in the eye and you trust them. But you can’t do that anymore.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (33:00)

Well and I think that as we move into this predominantly AI driven space that we’re going in or going toward, I think trust to a certain extent historically was something was that was innate. But you’ve identified now so rightly it now needs to be a skill that we hone hone in on and improve.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (33:27)

Yeah, because we we can’t just assume trust. You know, as much as biologically we want to default to truth and assume honesty, this is just not the world that that we live in anymore. And, you know, I’m not just talking about people either, I’m talking about brands, organizations, governments. You know, we we’re talking about leadership. How do you create trust in all of these environments so that people

 

you know, it it’s all about a feeling of safety, really. And there are ways that you can build trust, there are ways that you can maintain trust, and there are things that you can do that if trust is broken, and sometimes trust is broken both on a personal level or through a you know, if you’re a customer of a company and something happens, say they have a breach. You know, your trust is broken in that moment. As a brand or as a company, you need to start to think about in advance.

 

What do we do if? How do we rebuild that? And there are a a number of of elements. It starts with leadership, of course. it goes, it runs all the way through to your communications and you know, and then there’s sort of the the cultural piece, which is the person to person. so trust literacy can be taught in a way in this world that we live in to make people a little more savvy because no longer can we rely on our innate

 

feelings and our biological wiring because we are given reasons every single day not to trust and I think I think it is it is going to be a school of the future and I think trust for brands and leaders is going to be the core differentiator.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (35:12)

Yeah. And I think if as we review the marketplace and think about what roles are are going to fade out and what roles are are going to emerge in an in an AI centric world, I think one role that exists that is going to be amplified is crisis management. Sadly.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (35:32)

Yep,

 

I would agree.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (35:36)

So let’s get practical for a moment if we could to move into some of this educational phase of our conversation, Tracy. what would you say are the clearest red flags in a romantic context, in a in a business context, in a digital context that tell you something’s off?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (35:59)

Mm. I want to start by saying the level of sophistication that is being created with the technology that is out there makes the red flags very, very difficult to spot. So previously if you were getting an email and there were loads of spelling grammatical errors and things were just very outlandish, you would automatically go, That’s a red flag.

 

But now what we are seeing are scams that are targeted to the individual. And they have been done through scraping you know internet, social media, different posts, so that they can actually create a scam that is relevant for you on this date in this moment. And they’re doing that thousands of times over. They’re creating websites that look exactly like the brand’s websites. So

 

I think we have to say that the sophistication level because of technology and AI is off the charts at the moment. It is no longer enough to say if you are on a an online romantic relationship, do a video call and then you’ll know. Because what we have is real-time face swapping video and voice cloning tools that are very, very accessible. So

 

you know, a person that’s sitting in another country with another nationality can actually overlay their face and their voice, their accent with something that it seems relevant and realistic to you based on every conversation you’ve had with them. And you’re like, see, I saw them. I saw them. I’ve ch I’ve spoken to them. So those recommendations around old flag red flags of old don’t really apply anymore. So what I like to say is if you’re proactively being reached out to

 

You know, if someone is reaching out to you, whether it be on social media or through an organization or something online, that’s a red flag. If you haven’t gone searching for that information and done your own research, then that’s that’s one thing. Urgency, as we spoke about. If someone is putting pressure on you to send money, give money, send data, then that’s something. And then I would say again what we spoke about before, be conscious of heightened emotions. So if it is a relationship

 

You know, there’s a beautiful saying, when you’re wearing rose coloured glasses, all the red flags are just flags. And so being aware of your own emotions, which is hard, you know, when you’re in love, but you know, that’s the best part about

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (38:31)

Well it is, but I think, you know, we forget that because that that really heady feeling of being in love only happens at you know, a couple of times in our lives and and it only lasts for s a period of time. It’s not enduring and that’s not to say you don’t stay in love, but that that bit where it’s so distracting you can’t stay focused, you can’t think what you’re doing, you you can’t focus on your job to the detriment of the employer potentially.

 

But the decisions you make at that time, I I know they’re they’re less considered than what is your normal mode of operation.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (39:12)

Yeah, exactly. And these criminals who you know, present these situations and these scams to to victims, they keep that feeling, that heady feeling going for as long as possible. You know, they are sending multiple messages a day. And you think about for, you know, people that may not have a lot of

 

friendships in their life or their family lives away, they might be a bit older. If you have someone reaching out to you ten times a day telling you how amazing you are and interested in your life and asking you questions and wanting to know what you’re doing, that is very seductive. You know, there there are people like I don’t even talk to my mum that many times a week, you know? And so these are these are the tactics that that they use to

 

pull you in and push you under that spell. So it’s I I think these are like the higher level red flags because what we used to say about looking out for these signs and these red flags, they’re just so sophisticated at hiding them now because the technology is so good.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (40:26)

Yeah. And whilst my experience with financial fraud was very different to yours, it was similar in dollar value. It was about four hundred Australian dollars of where I was dealing with my domestic office of the firm that I was working with and working with our international office in Chicago. And with the time zone hackers were able to intercept comms between our two respective EAs.

 

moved a dot point in a character, which led to changing details or the banking details as to where the banking was to be paid. It looked like it was going to a credible banking scenario and it ended up in a in a Turkish bank with my side of the company ending up with a representative of the AFP, the Chicago office with a member of the FBI.

 

And I found myself in a in a six month process and of course we got not one cent of that back. And I have a cynical view about comms that I receive via email ever since going through that. And I’ll be interested in your opinion on this, Tracy. And I don’t know how fail safe it is. I d I don’t click on you touched on websites looking authentic. I don’t click on any original

 

links in in emails anymore, I go and start a fresh search and search and log into the a website or or something through my my own means. But I often copy the entire email with all the address details and I drop it into chat. Now I don’t use chat as my day to day AI, but I do for the purposes of this and it very quickly recognizes

 

What is and isn’t fraud is how fail safe is that as a process?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (42:25)

I think I think you get ten points, Di. Okay. business business email compromise, which is what you’re saying, or redirection scams is one of the top the top scams where we see losses. Now it’s and it’s growing because again, the technology is intercepting, it makes it look like you’re in the same thread, whether it be from your bank or a supplier.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (42:50)

And mine six

 

years ago, so this is even more sophisticated now, I’m guessing.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (42:55)

Hundred percent. So the first thing to do is independently verify. And what that means is opening up a new browser, going to the website that you’ve Google search, going to the contact us, calling the number and saying, I want to confirm your payment details, for example. And it’s it’s really it’s really interesting because now I’m running my own small business, the amount of companies that don’t do that. So I’ll send an email off from zero.

 

And it’s very, you know, there’s every chance that at some point that will get intercepted and the BSB and account details will change. And the amount of companies that won’t call me on my mobile and say, I’m just checking off your BSB and account details. So it’s really interesting. So that’s that’s a key one if you’re if you’re paying invoices. chat is an incredible tool. I’ve never done it from an email point of view, but what my mum

 

Does and she’s very proud of herself. She’s nearly 80. I’m I’m like her tech support, right? So she’s like, I’ve just got this email. It looks a bit weird, but I’m not sure. But it’s telling me I’m gonna lose my emails if I don’t do this thing. And I said, mum sounds dodgy, but send it send it to me, I have a look at it. So what I’ve taught taught her to do is how to take a screenshot, yeah, put it into chat and say, Is this a scam? Nine point nine times out of ten, it will come back.

 

Accurately saying yes, this is a scam. And because chat loves a chat, it’s never just yes, this is a scam. It tells you the five red flags that that are the reasons why. And so that is brilliant for my mum and seniors because it’s teaching them the things to look for. The email address is Gmail, not it’s not from Microsoft.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (44:42)

Or it’s got a whole lot of weird characters in it that make no sense at all.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (44:46)

No

 

sense. The the the logo’s fuzzy. They’ve they’ve asked you to act urgently by clicking on a link. Like there’s all the signs that I know automatically, but but my mom and her friends probably don’t. So in teaching her how to do that, and now she’s teaching her friends, it’s it’s a brilliant tool. So there’s lots of different tech tips and tools that you can use that that take a little bit of time to explain and

 

It’s not even explaining them. You have to show people how to use them in some cases, specifically our seniors, who are some of our most vulnerable people and they have the most money to to lose in most cases.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (45:27)

And the and and no time to rebuild what they lose. No.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (45:31)

that’s and that’s the most heartbreaking thing, yeah.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (45:34)

Absolutely. I mean I I could you wouldn’t want to encounter me as the judge in court if you had defrauded people of their entire financial savings at a point in time when they can’t recoup it. Because that feels personal to me where I am at my age and yep. There would be all sorts of punishments that would not actually get through the high court today.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:02)

Yeah. Well there were there were some beautiful seniors that were part of the case with the with Hamish McLaren and part of the victim cohort who lost an incredible amount of money and they were staring down the barrel of a really nice retirement. They’d worked very, very hard and they went from that to not knowing how they were gonna pay for their groceries every week. And they were the people in that whole experience that broke my heart.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (46:31)

Okay.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:31)

my god, I get sad thinking about them even now because I was forty two, right? I knew I had twenty, twenty five years of work left in me. It it it sucks. It sucks so hard, but

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (46:44)

But there is a difference.

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (46:45)

A hundred percent and they you know they didn’t have that opportunity and it just it just broke my heart. So that’s why I’m so passionate about seniors and helping them understand the tech to empower them because they’re so scared. They’re so fearful and it’s like how do we empower people with simple tools that it’s not enough just to say on a piece of comms, set up your two factor authentication or do a reverse image search. None of them know how to do it.

 

So you’ve got to sit with them, you’ve got to show them. You can’t just tell, you have to show. So that’s where I’m coming from. and and I do feel very, very passionately about the seniors. Yeah, anyway. I could go on for

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (47:28)

But it is it it is an inflection point where these these bastards and I don’t think I can call them anything less than that, is they’ve got this window of time between tech literacy and a generation that didn’t grow up with tech to to make hay and and they know that only only too well. So yeah, I get it.

 

Tracy, you’ve you’ve said publicly at a point in time you were at a one on your recovery scale at the worst of it, and now at an an at eight. How did you get there?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (48:07)

One step at a time. There were some days where I didn’t know how I was gonna get out of bed. And in those days I was very fortunate I had a child, a young child that needed to get to school every day and needed to get to her activities and I had a job. And my job was my only financial lifeline.

 

And I was so scared I was gonna lose it because I wasn’t operating at my best. In fact, I was probably the most destroyed I’ve ever been in my life. And but having that job and having her gave me something outside of myself that got me out of bed, put the one foot in front of the other, do one thing at a time, purpose, distraction. Distraction was wonderful. I became very, very good at compartmentalizing my life.

 

And disassociating, I’d say. You know, people would say to me, You’re so resilient, you know, you you’re really you’re on top of this, you’re so strong. And I thought to myself, I’m so disassociated, you know. So that was the beginning. And then and then it’s just a layering for me. It was a layering in of the basics. I got on top of my sleep. You know, sleep is the biggest, most positive hack that you can lean into. You know, I always say to my daughter who she’s nearly sixteen now.

 

Don’t trust your tired self. Life is hard when you’re tired. And there was a lot going on that I had to have my head screwed on for. So, you know, sleep, eating well, making sure I exercised. And then again, the layering of professional help. I did go on medication. I I sought therapy, I travelled, I engaged in new skills. You know, there’s so much. It’s not just one thing, you know. So I think I think it’s a it’s a bunch of things and you know

 

i over time time is time is wonderful too. it it does i it’s cliched and as you know, whatever it sounds, it it does time is a great healer.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (50:14)

I think that’s right. So as we come towards the close of our discussion today, could I ask you to speak directly to the woman who’s rebuilding from a setback in in whatever form it is? What would be the key message you’d like to leave her with?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (50:37)

think there’s probably a couple of things. Number one, find it within yourself to give yourself the most self compassion that you have ever mustered. It’s it’s very easy to be hard on ourselves in these moments. Coulda shoulda woulda, make the mistakes, whatever it is. Self compassion is key. And then I would say have a vision for yourself because I think it’s great to aim for something, but just take it one step at a time. You know these things don’t

 

heal themselves overnight. It is a long, messy, nonlinear journey to rebuild. It is definitely possible though. I hundred percent believe it’s possible for everyone who just need the right mindset, the right support. but just take it one step at a time and just day by day you get that little bit closer to your vision.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (51:28)

Yeah, brilliant. Tracy, how does somebody engage you if they’re looking for a professional to to speak on this or or some level of engagement around all the learnings that you have to offer based on your lived experience?

 

TRACY HALL – Guest (51:46)

Yes, the easiest place to go is my website, tracyhall.com.au. you’ll find my email address there. Reach out to me on social media, LinkedIn, I’m very active on LinkedIn. But yeah, I’m working with organizations all over the world to to help use this experience to the greater good of their employees, their customers and their families.

 

DI GILLETT _ Host of POWER OF WOMEN PODCAST (52:07)

Yeah, well done you. And there’s just a couple of points that I’d like to recap on. You said don’t trust your tired self. There is nothing truer than that. We make poor decisions and and poor choices when we’re not on on top of our game and we and we know that, you know, c lack of of cognition can be equivalent to to being drunk. So there is nothing more powerful than that. And the other thing that I picked up

 

That’s come through everything that you talked about that the experience that you had was this sense of heightened urgency. And and my call out to that would be don’t be afraid to slow things down. I had a business partner who always used to say, I’m gonna sleep on it. And I used to go, crap, can’t you just make a decision now? But there’s a lot to be said, whether it’s sleeping on it or just

 

Stepping back and despite the urgency, if it’s not dealing with a physical emergency in front of you that is life and death, do take the time to slow it down and allow yourself a moment to reflect and and and make a considered decision and and step away from the emotion that is surrounding you at the time. And I know it’s easier said than done.

 

But it but it is it is worth calling out. So that would be one of my cool takeaways. So if you’ve loved this podcast, please let us know. Write a r write a review because that is the most powerful thing you can do to help other people find it and share this episode with somebody who you think needs it. And also find me on LinkedIn because I would love to hear what landed for you in the discussion with Tracy today.

 

Until next time.

 

Chapters [Audio]

00:00 The Power of Women: Collective Strength

01:49 Trust and Betrayal: Tracy’s Journey

06:05 Online Dating: A New Chapter

09:47 The Unravelling: Discovering the Truth

14:06 Understanding the Scammer’s Mindset

17:48 Psychological Architecture of Fraud

23:01 Rebuilding Trust After Betrayal

24:46 Victims of Financial Crime: A Neglected Perspective

30:15 Trust Literacy: Navigating a Distrustful World

34:07 Identifying Red Flags in Various Contexts

46:04 The Journey of Recovery: Steps to Healing

 

Connect with Di:

Connect with Di on LinkedIn

Follow Power Of Women on LinkedIn

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The Power Of Women Podcast Instagram

Contact Di

 

Find Tracy at:

Website https://tracyhall.com.au

Resources https://tracyhall.com.au/resources

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyhall1975

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tracyleehall/?hl=en

 

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The Federal Budget has the Potential to Destroy Business and Aspiration.

The Federal Budget has the Potential to Destroy Business and Aspiration.

by | Aug 10, 2026 | Entrepreneur, Female Leaders

Kudos to Janine Allis for being outspoken on the impact the Federal Budget will have on business and aspiration.

Founders are calling it a tax on ambition. Boost Juice founder Janine Allis has no doubts that having a go is worth it, but she has real questions about the fairness of changing the rules after the risk was already taken, and about the viability of pursuing business opportunities in Australia.

In this episode, Di and Janine Allis discuss the fallout from the Federal Budget: the CGT changes, negative gearing reforms, and whether the divide between a young founder and one with decades invested is about to get a lot wider.

The Budget didn’t kill ambition, but it made it a whole lot more expensive.

 

➡️You’ll Hear :

  • Why Janine calls these tax changes a tax on ambition, not a correction
  • What a Budget like this teaches an aspiring entrepreneur before they’ve even started
  • Why the 25-year-old founder and the 55-year-old founder are not taking the same hit
  • Why Australia’s capital gains tax rate is now a signal to build elsewhere
  • Janine’s advice for the next female founder considering the leap.

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Tax settings impact who starts a business and who doesn’t
  • The founders taking the biggest hit are the ones this reform claims to protect
  • Having a go was always a risk. This Budget raised the price of taking it.

 

Janine said:

“We’ve allowed it for it to be AUD10 million, but okay so this 25 year old make sure you don’t make it – no make sure you don’t do a good business make sure it’s a small business and if at any point any point you start to make it a decent business, we’re gonna tax you not just a little bit more – double!”

“We’re running this country poorly, so we’ll just tax more.”

“The people they’re trying to help are the ones being hurt most.”

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT [HOST] (00:02)

So Janine, when you hear that phrase power of women, do you think that’s where we’ve landed or we’re still a way off?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (00:11)

I’ve never thought we haven’t landed there. So so I’m not this person that goes that we’ve never had the power of women. You know, I’ve I when I started Boost Juice Bars, there was four women that were my team and they were we were powerful. So, you know, I think that I think that’s not the fact that it didn’t exist, I think that we’re just recognizing it more now than we ever have before.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (00:32)

Yeah, fantastic.

 

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women Podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And whilst most podcasts tell you what’s possible, these women share with you what it took to get there. It’s the place where women supporting women isn’t just a sentiment, it’s the decision we make every single day.

 

Now today I’m talking about the fallout from the federal budget, the CGT changes, the negative gearing and reforms, and what they have cost people building the country’s future. This is where policy really meets ambition and where that have a go ethos gets tested and where founders are calling it a tax on ambition.

 

I’ve pursued this conversation because I wanted to ask the woman who built a juice concept into a global retail network and is a serial entrepreneur exactly what these changes mean for business and more importantly for the next generation. Joining me from Sydney in Australia, Janine Allis welcome to the Power Of Women Podcast.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (02:08)

Thanks for having me.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (02:10)

Janine, before we jump straight into some Q and A about what’s happened as a result of the the federal budget, could you tell me what was the motivation initially behind becoming an entrepreneur and launching your own business?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (02:26)

Yeah.

 

Look, you know, sometimes y you know, people think that this it’s this big motivation. For me, honestly, it was going I wanna create ha I wanna be in charge of my own destiny and I found that the stresses I had was other people’s from other people’s results, so I thought I’d do it myself and I had no idea what I was getting into and I also had little kids at home, so I had three little children at home and I wanted to have the flexibility to run the life I wanted the way the my way. So and so yeah, and then

 

I stupidly thought, I could do this part time, that would be good.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (03:00)

Yeah. Not not so. And and on reflection, would you have done anything differently?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (03:08)

Never. No, and did I do heaps of things wrong? Yes, every day I got things wrong. But it’s actually the no one learns anything from success. The only thing you ever learn is from failure. And so, you know, I was a person that was just creating system after system because I was like, right, ’cause you know, when you look at Boost Juice Bus, sure you go to a shopping centre and there it is and it’s standing there and it’s green and you have great get a great smoothie. But it came from thin air. So every s if you look at them and where they stand at their stations

 

I had to come up with that. I had to come up with recipes. I had to come up with the counter, the logo, the how did it looked, how did it feel. Like i it ca everything comes from your imagination and creation. And so and I think even when you see some big brands, everything started from nothing at some point. And so I think we forget that. We just think they’ve always existed. So yes, I think that yeah, so it was me just going, Right, okay

 

That was a that was a mistake. How do I fix that one? All right. I need a system for that one, and what are the rules that I need to follow?

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (04:09)

Yeah, and you’re still going, you’re still building new brands, so well done you.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (04:13)

You’ve you’ve built

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (04:15)

And if I could jump into this whole issue that has come about most recently with the with the federal budget. And you’ve built businesses under different tax settings and when you look at the recent CGT changes, do you see them as a fair correction or a tax on the risk that you took?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (04:37)

it’s not a correction. So if you look at why they’ve said they’ve done it, they’ve said they’ve done it to create more housing, right? Which I which is really bizarre because I look at pe people who interview them, I just want want people to say one ask him one question. How? How does these taxes help that?

 

And then when they do a study on it, they said in 20 years’ time it may help, right? We’re in a world right now of AI and change that we don’t even know what it’ll look like in two years’ time, let alone five years’ time, let alone ten years’ time, let alone 10 20 years’ time. So there’s gotta be more changes. So what it actually is is this it is a government that is in incredible debt, that cannot manage their money, and they’re just going after more taxes. Because all

 

All of these changes, and it’s not just capital gains tax, it’s also on equality gearing, it’s also on trusts, it’s also on lots of other things, right? It’s simply they’ve they’ve they’ve got the NDIS thing that’s out there which is not being which is being mismanaged and abused, right? I think it’s a good thing that it exists, but I think it’s been mismanaged and abused. Actually no it’s

 

and abused. and and so they just try to to fund stuff that they it’s just through mismanagement. So it’s like them go and it’s it’s I think it’s like stealing. It’s like, you know, if I’m a business and I’m not running it well, I’ve got to go in and actually fix it. They’re just going, we’re running this country poorly. how do we do it? We’ll just tax more. So it’s simply just taxing more. And what are they taxing? They’re taxing the businesses. And it’s just and people that

 

Actually anyone who wants to get ahead, forget businesses. If you want to do shares, if you want to do a business, if you wanna do property, anyone who wants to get ahead, they will tax you. Right? So

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (06:32)

And it’s been done retrospectively, Janine. So everything that we’ve stood to understand to be our wealth creation for the future has just just been eroded and and superannuation’s gotta be coming next.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (06:47)

You look it th they they will go they will look under every rock. I d I have I can’t predict what they’re gonna look for. But I just feel really sorry for people because they’re going the what they’re saying is we need to reduce the price of property. So if you’ve worked your gut out and finally after years saved money for a deposit and then got in there, they’ve just devalued your property. It’s terrible. It’s terrible.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (07:12)

Yeah. You’ve got a workforce full of full of young people. Are you are you getting feedback from from the field?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (07:19)

I’ve been getting feedback from the business community. Like I’ve got a business call a a business called the Business Academy and you know it’s and that’s probably why I stood up because I I hear first hand and no one was having a voice. People were be get being like really disillusioned and no one was speaking up for them. And you know, does anyone want to put their head up? No. You know. So I just felt so compelled that it was just so wrong that I went, right, I’m gonna go out and go. Do you does anyone understand what they’re doing because they’re doing better

 

I actually think Dave Hughes is doing a great job. I agree. In just g putting a light and a torch going, Have a look over here, guys.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (07:58)

Mm. Yeah. And that’s probably one of the last voices that you would have expected to talk about it too. So

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (08:05)

He’s a labor guy, you know.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (08:08)

Well there’s plenty of Labour guys speaking out, so it’s it’s he’s not on his own as as you aren’t. So the generation of Australians who are watching this debate and and are yet to dive into a a business as distinct to how this is impacting those who’ve started, what does it teach a a young twenty-two year old thinking about an entrepreneurial path?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (08:32)

Look at the end of the day you’re built a certain way, right? So

 

fact that the government is basically going to be ripping you off is something you just go, I’ll deal with that in the future. You know, if you want to get into business and you have that entrepreneurial spirit, you want to do it your own way, most entrepreneurs don’t go into it and go, I want to be a millionaire or billionaire or whatever. They don’t. They go in and go, Wouldn’t it be good if I could find a solution to a problem? And that and I see a a a window that I could go in and do it. So that’s what entrepreneurs do. Right? Now the fact that the government’s been

 

them over and stealing from them, which I think that they are, is is a is part of something that hopefully in the future can be rectified. I don’t know if it can, but hopefully it can, because it’s not an encouraging businesses. But you know I think people just because of what they’ve done, I think people will still get into business. People do it. But will they think about doing in Singapore? Will they think about doing New Zealand?

 

Sure. Why wouldn’t you? Because you’ve got an opportunity now with the rules that you’re pr currently playing with to make different d decisions. Which, you know, that takes employment, that takes taxes, that takes you know, they’re so stupid.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (09:45)

So through through your business platform, are you hearing anything from the investment community in terms of a a change of momentum or a reticent to to actually invest?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (09:57)

It th the the investment cu community is actually quite complex with regard to how they structure which then how they’re taxed. So that’s really individual to for different JV PEs and and and VCs firms. So I don’t I there’s definitely that component of what does this mean and how do we structure our things different? And is Australia the best place to

 

invest right so there’s definitely those discussions being had. I can’t tell you because I haven’t got the statistics if that means that there’s less people, but the reality is most people who do a business, their main exit is a pi pri a a a PE company that will come in and buy them. So if they’re not going to be looking here then it does give it’s hard it’s really hard to sell businesses. It’s really hard to it’s hard to do it’s hard it’s just hard.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (10:53)

It’s even hard

 

to pass them on generationally to ’cause the same thing, you’re not you’re not going to avoid the impact of of what’s happened. So it it feels like we’re being walloped at every at every turn. So Well coming up we’re gonna talk about is the have a go ethos still alive in the this country or in fact did the budget just kill it?

 

If you’re loving the Power Of Women Podcast, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

 

So when you hear us say or or when you say, Janine, tax on ambition, is that a critique on what’s happened or is that a personal point of view?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (11:43)

I d well it’s a personal point of view, right? So everyone has their view. I’m certainly not an expert in this field. I mean I don’t know actually I didn’t come up with it, but but whoever said it it it is true. It’s it’s just it’s it’s opportunistic, it’s just greedy. It’s just greedy and no one’s then no one’s taking accountability for actually running their own their own our money, our money that we are actually paying as tax, not running it effectively. They’re not taking they’re not being respectful, they’re not being

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (12:13)

Yeah. I think that I think they’re two key points, our money and and and lack of respect. I think that that sums it up in in a in a nutshell. So does this policy actually erode Australian entrepreneurial spirit, do you think?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (12:29)

You know, I thought years ago what makes an Australian Australian and

 

You know, th quite often, you know, when you have children, you you pass on brown hair, brown eyes, but you also pass on certain traits. Now if you look at Australia and how it’s been created, it’s been created by people who have been very brave to leave their home and then come and actually come to Australia and immigrate here and start a new life and a better life. You have to be a certain person to be able to do that. And that’s like back with the Irish, back with the Italians, and now even now with the you know with new

 

Australians coming into us, right? You have to be a certain type. So there’s no Australian, unless you’re an Aboriginal, that has been here that hasn’t got a DNA of somewhere along the line of someone taking a risk. So I fundamentally believe that Australia’s DNA is one of risk and entrepreneurialism. And and

 

having that sense of adventure, which is what I think entrepreneurship is, is a sense of adventure. So I think we’re built that way. I think it’s in our DNA. I have no f scientific basis for that. I just think that.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (13:38)

No. And what about in terms of your DNA? Where do you think it came from if you look at your own lineage?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (13:44)

my god, not from my parents. They are they are definitely no, I’m s I’m some sort of freak in my family. yeah, no, I look

 

You know, I think I’ve always been an adventurer. You know, I left left home well I left s left Australia at twenty one and came back seven years later after just going on an adventure. So I think I’m more an adventurer and I think that entrepreneurship i is sort of like an adventure. So yeah, so I think I’m built that way. But yeah, no, looking at the DNA maybe it’s a few generations away that that it wasn’t my parents.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (14:17)

What about with your kids? Do you think you’ve passed it on?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (14:20)

My God, totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so I think children to sort of look I think you have to be sort of buck the system in some respects, but then our children my kids just sort of go, that’s what you do, isn’t it? You work for someone, learn the skill and then create your own business. So I think yeah, I think certainly two of my kids have got their own business and and another one is is doing a great job within one of our businesses. So no, they’re and then my eighteen year old daughter is just doing HSC so she has no idea what she wants to do.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (14:51)

She’ll be facing a tax a hex debt of some some sort. So she might have a different voting view to you until until she’s playing tax.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (14:59)

Pretty much, yes.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (15:01)

Yeah. So and and on that point, do you do you think there is a difference between how these taxes are going to affect a twenty five year old founder who who may have l much less to lose and may be able to structure themselves correctly from

 

from the outset, the outset being now, versus a fifty five year old plus founder who’s got a mortgage, huge investment, and had an exit plan that had a sale attached to it in two or three years time.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (15:36)

I think at the end of the day, you look at the rules that you have in front of you, right? So yes, the advantage of a twenty five year old, he can make decisions or he or she can make decisions based on the rules that they’ve got. And that’s why what probably my biggest gripe was was it was you’ve changed the rules, right? So you make decisions based on rules and you’ve changed the rules. You can’t change the rules, right? In some respects there is grandf some grandfathering. They’ve made it really complex of trying to please everyone and now we’re left trying to work out how to actually

 

you know, do it. So the guy that probably the you know, the fifty five year old guy who’s established a business who is looking at an exit, you know, because of this grandfather on the GST is probably okay is if he’s got the if he’s got the the existing house, he’s per primarily grandfathered for for the negative gearing, from what I understand. But the person starting don’t get those advantages. And they’re saying, but we’ve we’ve allowed it for it to be ten million dollars. But okay, so this twenty five year old

 

make sure you don’t make it no make sure you don’t do a good business make sure it’s a small business and if at any point any point you start to make it a decent business we’re gonna tax you not just a little bit more double we’re gonna tax you double

 

I mean that is just outrageous. Like outrageous that that that that is that is even the case. So for that entrepreneur to come in, they’re they’re gonna make they’re not gonna be able to make the money that that fifty-five year old made because they’re paying double the tax that person paid. Double. It’s just wrong. It’s so in actual fact the people that they’re trying to help, which is the people coming in new businesses, is the ones that they’re actually affecting the most.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (17:20)

Correct. And and on the basis of of that level of income stream coming through, they’ll never be able to buy a house. So that completely defeats what they’re trying to tell us.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (17:30)

So okay,

 

let’s try and get a mortgage. Okay, let’s do some shares so we can get some money for the mortgage. sorry, better tax you double on that. Sorry.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (17:37)

Yeah. Yeah. And and they’re probably carrying a if they’ve gone to uni they’re carrying a a hexteck that’s already a huge noose around their around their neck in terms of their their financial profile. Hmm. Yeah, crazy. But it seems, Janine, that for the past fifty years successive governments, regardless of of their colour, have actually understood what, you know, aspiration and and that entrepreneurial spirit is about. But it but it seems in the last three or four years or

 

post COVID that Australia in particular just hasn’t righted itself. Do you think that’s a a reasonable view or am I being too harsh?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (18:17)

I don’t know, I think it’s about votes. Right? I don’t know.

 

I think that you’ve got an extreme party which is the Greens. Now I didn’t understand what the Greens were at the start. I just went, they like trees. I like trees. Let’s vote for them, right? So then when you start to look at their it’s a bit socialist, their views and what they’re looking at, right? So they’ve got in because they’ve been the second or third vote on the on the thing, right? That’s how they’ve got their their their seats. So what they’ve got is now it’s all about so we forget about what’s good for the country or not. It’s actually about ego and it’s making it’s

 

Actually, about getting things through. So for me, I look at it and go, Labor has to incorporate some of the ex greens extreme views to actually get things through. It’s all about you know force trading. So people think it’s a you think it’s about this big philosophy, it’s actually about vote.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (19:13)

Staying

 

in power.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (19:14)

And staying in power, right? It has nothing to do with the benefit of Australia. It has nothing to do with, you know, growth. Because the other thing is they’re only in there for four years, right?

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (19:25)

No,

 

and their and their thinking is so short term and to your point, simply about being being being vote winning.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (19:32)

Yeah, and keeping their jobs and then keeping this lovely little you know, forever package that they get. Like it’s

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (19:38)

Yeah. And they’ve and they’ve probably never run a business and don’t understand what it’s what it’s like to to read a P&L. Well clearly in Victoria they don’t know what it’s like to read a P and L.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (19:48)

my God, that’s out of control, isn’t it? It’s so

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (19:50)

Isn’t

 

it? Isn’t it? Yeah. And changing the face changes nothing.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (19:55)

No,

 

no, it actually doesn’t. Like, you know, I’ve got a nephew who is in the construction industry and he works all over Australia and he arrived into Victoria and was bullied into joining and bullied and it was like it was things like

 

the the it says it’s gonna rain in half an hour. Tools down. Never rain that day. Right? It’s just it was just like that, my God. It’s just and you know, the thing is though, the other thing is, they’re not gonna give up power. They’re not gonna give up the bad the corruption. So there’s gonna be death threats. There’s gonna be you know people

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (20:31)

Of course there is. Well not will be, has been.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (20:34)

Is i it is happening. There’s gonna be money put under the table. There is it is so corrupt. It’s gonna be dropped.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (20:41)

If you

 

ran your business like that, you don’t get to sail away into the sunsh sunset with a with a lifetime income and a and a superannuation strateg funding that’s paid off the public purse that’s going to fund you. You’d you’d end up being in a in a criminal court you know, with them crawling all all over your finances and looking where you’d offshored your offshored your money. But politicians get a get a pat on the back and off they go and no accountability.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (21:10)

If I ever ruled the world I’d change that.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (21:12)

Yes, so would I.

 

If to rule the world? Yeah, well I’m a former search firm, search executive, Janine. I’ll let I’ll let you know if it comes up. And then I’ll speak

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (21:24)

I think it’s bowl just to fix that.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (21:26)

Yeah, exactly. So with Australia being the the highest capital gains tax rate in the developed world, is anybody in the future really going to start a business here? You’ve already mentioned, you know, New Zealand, Singapore. Do you think that’s going to be the trend?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (21:43)

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and and that’s the whole thing, ’cause they do these numbers based on the status quo, but the status quo about incentives, right? So now they’re going so people and but it’ll affect employment, it’ll already, you know, we’re coming up for a really interesting age, right? So the the age of AI yeah is actually going to be quite dramatic. It’s gonna be people it’s already affecting now. So right now things like big corporates aren’t taking the interns in. They don’t need to, right?

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (22:12)

Right.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (22:12)

So already there’s a s there’s not necessarily layoffs, which there is layoff in some industry, but there’s there’s not the opportunities, right? So you’ve got that. So through one to three years, we won’t notice it as much. Three years will start to really hurt. Five years we’re in a s serious social social issue, right? Yeah. So then you layer on what the government’s done with disincentivising businesses. And so they’re gonna go ’cause so so they’re gonna go, Okay, well we’ve gotta make more money, we’re gonna do

 

staff o offshore because you know that’s gonna work a lot better for us because it ch they adding on payroll tax everything so we’re gonna do that, we’re gonna we’re gonna do all these things that makes business owners just to survive try and find ways around it. Okay, okay, I need to set up in New Zealand. Fine. Okay, good skiing New Zealand, I’ll go to New Zealand, right? I’ll live in Singapore. I’ll live somewhere else other than Australia because it will it is all my hard work will just go there and I can still have the benefit of, you know, visiting Australia without

 

the the taxes. So it will be I’m very concerned for Australia, actually the world, but Australia with regard to the these decisions, if they’re not reversed, I’m very concerned for Australia in three to five.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (23:27)

Yeah. Yeah. On that, the government says that they’re still consulting with business. Now, how the hell do you consult after the event? You typically consult before you bring in some significant point in change or or transformation. Is are they consulting? Is business having any dialogue or is it is that just performative for the camera? So

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (23:53)

Di are you saying that because a the politician said they’re doing something, they’re actually doing something? Like is that like sorry? Yeah, seriously? Yeah. you know just into Allen turned around and said the Victorian government have all this power to be able to help corruption. The Victorian government, the Victorian police coming sorry, the Victorian police have all this power, right? Victorian police come in and go, We have no power.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (24:18)

Yeah.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (24:19)

So it’s like

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (24:21)

Yeah.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (24:23)

So so

 

what they tend to do is they go, All right guys, what’s our one line? Right? No matter what question they ask us, what is our one line? Right? That’s our one line. It’s media training, but it’s bullshit. All we want is authenticity. That’s all we want. And it’s

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (24:37)

And

 

and you and you raised the point, Janine, on on on media trading. I mean I think I think if we could put a coin in the jar of every time we heard Dan Andrews or Jacinta Allan say, Let me be clear, for Ben Carroll to then come out and say, This is a new era, but he phrased it, prefaced it with let me be very clear. I know.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (25:00)

It’s magnificent.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (25:02)

It is horrific. There are there are a couple of lines that

 

Incite me to throw the T V control, I can tell you. That’s that’s absolutely one of them. Janine, final question today. What would your advice be for a female founder or a female entrepreneur considering starting a business, given what we know today?

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (25:26)

I think the end of the day is get out of your own way. ‘Cause I think what we do is in our head we say things like, imposter syndrome, glass ceiling, we can’t do it because of, right? I think at the end of the day the reason I became successful was because I was naive. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know you weren’t able to do a hundred stores in four years. I didn’t know that that was not a thing, right? And bec so I wasn’t in my way. I just went, right, okay, we’ve got to do it, gotta find a way.

 

Here we go, right? So in actual fact, I think that we just need to go how do you move a mountain? One rock at a time, right? If you look at the whole mountain, we can’t do it. So you just take one step, get started, don’t just caught up in analysis paralysis, just get started and start learning.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (26:14)

Yeah. Thank you. I think we can agree having a go was was never free and and this budget didn’t kill ambition, but it certainly made it more expensive. And harder.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (26:25)

Mm.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (26:26)

And harder. Yeah. Janine, thank you so much for sharing your views and also thank you so much for speaking out publicly when when so many people have been reticent to do so given the given the changes as as business owners we’re all feeling. And

 

And I can only hope that somebody can come in and correct the ledger.

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (26:49)

Yep, we could only hope. And and the thing is hope but vote.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (26:53)

Yeah, well that’s right. Yeah, you’ve we’ve got it we’ve got a choice to make. We

 

JANINE ALLIS [Guest] (26:57)

We do. We do.

 

DI GILLETT [HOST] (26:58)

  1. Thank you. Thank you. Until next time.

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:46 Entrepreneurial Journey: Motivation and Lessons Learned

06:02 Taxation and Its Impact on Ambition

09:05 The Future of Entrepreneurship in Australia

11:53 The DNA of Australian Entrepreneurship

14:58 Navigating New Business Challenges

18:06 Political Landscape and Its Effects on Business

20:57 The Role of Government in Business Success

24:10 Advice for Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs

 

Connect with Di:

Connect with Di on LinkedIn

Follow Power Of Women on LinkedIn

Follow Di on Instagram

The Power Of Women Podcast Instagram

Contact Di

 

Find Janine Allis at:

Websites:

https://www.janineallis.com.au/business-academy/

https://thebusinessacademy.com.au/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/janineallis/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/janine_allis

 

This is the home of unapologetic conversations and powerful stories of reinvention. New episodes drop every 2nd Monday to fuel your week with insights on leadership, resilience, and success. Subscribe and join a community of women who are changing the game.

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Who Decided Experience Has An Expiry Date?

Who Decided Experience Has An Expiry Date?

by | Jul 27, 2026 | Ageism

Ageism in the workplace is an issue around the world.

Hence the question: When does experience stop being valued? At what age?

Jacqueline Freeman in based in New Zealand. She has been made redundant five times. The most brutal of them landed three days after she had both knees replaced. She had worked up until the Friday before surgery, had the operation on the Monday, and was off crutches within days. On the Thursday, her employer walked into her recovery with a large bunch of flowers in one hand and a letter of termination in the other.

Experienced women are being systematically sidelined from the workforce from the age of 40. The average unemployment timeline for over-50s in Australia is 86 weeks. Cognitive peak occurs in the late 50s. And the retirement age in Australia is 67. It’s 65 in New Zealand. You do the math. Yet, organisations continue to treat experience as a liability while calling it something more palatable such as restructuring, over-qualified, budget constraints.

In this episode, Di Gillett and Jacqueline Freeman get straight to the point. This is not a feel-good episode. It is a thought leadership conversation with real intellectual teeth, and actionable insights for the woman who has ever felt the system beginning to look through her – rather than at her.

Your experience isn’t baggage. It’s leverage.

 

➡️We Explore :

💎Age discrimination in the workplace.

💎Retirement age and employment challenges.

💎Unconscious bias in hiring practices.

💎The mental health impact of age discrimination.

💎Strategies for women over 50 to stay relevant.

💎The value of older workers.

💎Strategies to combat workplace discrimination.

💎The future of age inclusivity in employment.

 

Key Points:

💡For women, ageism does not start at retirement. It starts in the mid-40s, the moment grey hair becomes visible, decades before the system has any official use for the word “old”.

💡The system is not designed to recognise experience. It is designed to detect age, and a long, accomplished CV is often the thing that gets you filtered out before a human ever sees it.

💡The retirement age keeps moving up while the hiring age moves down, leaving a growing number of years where women are too “old” to hire and too young to access their own super or pension.

💡Cognitive peak does not arrive until your late 50s and early 60s: the exact point at which organisations are most likely to be pushing experienced women out the door.

 

Jacqueline said:

“Just being you, and accepting that you is enough.”

“We are 23% of the population, but we’re 60% of the wealth. Don’t you care about us?”

“The very people you are pushing out should be the very people you’re pulling in. They’re the most valuable.”

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (00:02)
Jacqueline, power of women, what does that invoke in you?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (00:10)
It’s such an interesting question, isn’t it? When I think about women, there is nothing more important to me than being able to turn up authentically as yourself and to have confidence in who you are. And it doesn’t matter if you’re tall or short or fat or slim or what color you are or the shape of your eyes.

just being you and accepting that you is enough. I think that’s really important and in the work that I do, I of course come across a lot of women who haven’t reached that place yet. And I would love it if all women could get to that spot in their lives. Yeah, because when you do…

It’s, you feel like you can almost unleash yourself.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (01:10)
I agree.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (01:10)
It’s, apart from the fact I think it’s cathartic, it’s, you feel unstoppable and it’s a beautiful thing.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (01:20)
Beautiful.

and this is where we showcase and celebrate the strength, resilience and achievements of incredible women. The question I’m exploring today is when do we stop valuing experience? And the tension behind that isn’t subtle and to help me explore this further is Jack Freeman.

Jacqueline has spent over three decades working at the highest levels in media and advertising sectors, and like many of us, noticed a shift. And over the years, our experience starts to work against us, not for us. That’s the shift that I want to explore today. And in response, Jack built 58 and Unapologetic, turning her own erasure into a global platform.

while still working in the media. So together we’re going to explore and I wanna make it very clear, your experience is leverage. Joining me from New Zealand, JACQUELINE FREEMAN welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (02:43)
What a pleasure. Look at us with our matching hair and matching glasses.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (02:48)
I

know, the dark and light. I love it.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (02:54)
When

I grow up I’m going to have pink hair too because I would…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (02:57)
There

you go. I am the older one of it. when you grow up.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (03:04)
People could tell.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (03:08)
Jack, for the people who don’t know you, can you tell us a bit about your career and your background?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (03:14)
Certainly, as you mentioned in the intro, which was lovely, thank you so much, Di. I have literally worked in media almost my entire life and I have loved it. I have been deeply passionate and thrown my entire self into it at varying times, giving more of myself to the roles than I probably should have done.

which has resulted in me being made redundant five times. That’s one of the things about living in the media world.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (03:49)
Yeah. Because

the average is about two, but media is brutal.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (03:56)
Media is brutal. And certainly

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (03:58)
you

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (03:59)
where I began in the newspaper industry was the category that was the most disrupted of any on the planet. so there has been a lot of change in my career. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve held some big seats and looked after some very big budgets. And I’ve…

I’ve had some diversity in that too. I’ve worked for media suppliers. I’ve been a head of media and executive director at Ogilvy, the advertising agency, which many of your listeners will be familiar with. I’ve worked for myself, which is the other thing. So there’s lots in there. 30 years, you can pick a fair amount in.

It’s taught me an enormous amount.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (04:56)
Yeah, wonderful. So you’ve built a large audience or a large following, I should say. I think you’ve said you’ve just hit 20,000 followers in LinkedIn. You’ve done that in a mere 11 months. What is it that you’ve been talking about that’s been connecting with people?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (05:18)
It’s really interesting that I didn’t set out to be, I’m currently sitting in the top 1 % of all of LinkedIn’s 1.2 billion accounts, which came as quite a surprise to me, and 11 million.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (05:35)
That’s amazing.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (05:36)
And I didn’t set out to do anything except for to make a comment about something. I have a contract with

the New Zealand television broadcasters as their gem of communications. And we ran a campaign for the TV advertising paradox, which was essentially how could something be so dead and alive at the same time? And it talked about audiences and in the media, a lot of the buying makeup of audiences is for people 25 to 54.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (06:12)
Mm.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (06:13)
So,

We wrote an article… No,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (06:15)
Not us, Jack.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (06:17)
not us! And so I wrote an article that said, what if you’re 55 and over? What about us? We are 23 % of the population, but we’re 60 % of the wealth. Don’t you care about us? What a fuck up. What

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (06:39)
Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (06:40)
I wrote as my headline.

And before I knew it, my audience wasn’t just media people in New Zealand. This thing had flown all the way around the world a couple of times.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (06:55)
rightly so.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (06:57)
And

an outpouring of feeling and emotion around being discarded once you reached a certain age. So I responded to that and I wrote some more.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (07:18)
Yeah, there you go.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (07:20)
Before you knew it, had had three posts that, when you’ve had about 100,000, it’s theoretically viral. I had one that was at 380,000.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (07:35)
All

on the same thread. Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (07:38)
When that one blew up, I, at that stage, had reached, I was the single biggest voice on any subject in the Southern Hemisphere on LinkedIn.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (07:55)
Wow. What was the interest in gender, male versus female?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (08:03)
Definitely more women. So to give you sort of more sort of insight into what was really coming through, because it kind of blew my mind actually, what it was how people felt discarded,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (08:20)
Mm.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (08:21)
how they felt irrelevant, how they had lost their jobs, how they couldn’t get a job. And then it told me that

no matter how many times they applied for a job, they just got ghosted. They heard from no one. And it blew right out into mental health and a whole number of things that we can explore today and on other days because it’s evolving and I’m learning more and more and more. But I started, the more research that I did about us as we age began to open up

I guess a Pandora’s box, which was, hang on a minute. Everything you believe or I lead to believe around aging is actually a lot of rot. It’s

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (09:13)
Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (09:14)
absolute rubbish. And we as women, particularly, women over 45, really, you are being judged.

as if you were that same age in the 1950s.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (09:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is so true. So, your own erasure, how many redundancies? Five. Five, okay.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (09:47)
No, they’re not.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (09:51)
Yeah, what age were you the first time?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (09:56)
I think I might have been around 40,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (09:59)
Okay.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (10:00)
but I was in very big jobs, you know, so very big jobs.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (10:05)
Was age the issue or was it a lot more of that at stake? I don’t it

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (10:10)
I don’t know if was I

also worked in a very, very male dominated world. And I, without doubt, worked three times as hard as any man. I can say that unequivocally and they can scrap it out with me as much as they like. I was the second only female in a really senior role in a company that employed 6,000 people.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (10:36)
Wow. End.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (10:38)
I worked unbelievably hard to get there, but what happens is if the market turns, which it does, we’re in one right now, and they will find someone to blame. And a business will make cuts. And what I’ve noticed is the boys club will look after the boys. And I…

I believe that certainly during that time of my life, women were unfairly represented, I believe, in those numbers.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (11:15)
Yeah. So at what point did you realize getting back into work after a couple more of these redundancies was a very different challenge?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (11:30)
had my most brutal redundancy. That wasn’t where I noticed it. We can talk about that one if you’re interested.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (11:42)
I mean, if it’s relevant, let’s go there. What makes a redundancy brutal?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (11:48)
So I was New Zealand’s youngest person to have both of my knees replaced at the same time. I had a very big job and

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (11:59)
Medically not an award you wanted.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (12:01)
No, you see, I’m a young person now. went, pin up girl for that.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (12:07)
Bye!

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (12:08)
But when I was in, I worked up to the Friday before the Monday of the surgery, my legs were completely bowed. I couldn’t stand up unaided. I had the operation on the Monday. Totally reinvented my life. Like, I left the hospital on the Saturday and I never used crutches again.

But on the Thursday, my new Australian employer came in with a large bunch of flowers in one hand and a letter of disestablishment in the other.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (12:48)
I know what I would have done with the flowers.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (12:50)
Well, I couldn’t get up off the bed. But at that stage, I was one of only three people this company theoretically could never do without.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (13:02)
And I’m pretty sure that there would be question marks about how credible that is as a redundancy.

It’s right up there. Forget legislation, just simple human decency.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (13:22)
And I think this is an organization that I had given more of myself to than I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved it and what I did for it.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (13:35)
So you’re identified through your title and what you did.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (13:38)
It was not even the title, it was the work that I was doing and the people who I worked with and who worked for me and you know I had a lot of impact on a lot of people. We can talk about that particular subject perhaps in another…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (14:02)
Yeah, another podcast.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (14:04)
But, but.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (14:06)
So when did ageism start to become the issue?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (14:09)
It just hit me in my later 40s, I’m going to say about 49. I had to take a year off work because my son was very unwell. And when I left the workforce for a year, I had another large job and

I had always been headhunted and never actively looked for work in my life

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (14:43)
Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (14:44)
and I just assumed that I

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (14:47)
That would continue.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (14:48)
job back in as if it had always been I’d be in demand and I found out that’s simply not true.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (14:57)
Yeah, that’s a shock.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (14:59)
It was a huge shock and what I noticed was

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (15:05)
how quickly the world moves on and forgets us.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (15:08)
I’m like, I’m exactly the same person that I’ve always been. I’ve got this huge CV. am well liked as far as I know, I’ve left it, you know, a pretty decent kind of pedigree. The only thing that has changed is my age. There were roles, there was a particular role comes to mind where there’s, I know for a fact, there’s no one in the country who would have been more qualified than me. I didn’t even get in.

And again, I got ghosted. couldn’t get a reply. I didn’t get a reply. I’m like…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (15:44)
Are

you dealing with headhunters or directly with the organization?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (15:49)
These were jobs through trade boards, job boards and I was like, this is a rot. What happened was, and I talk a lot about this on my platform, which is the impact it had on my value of myself.

I started to think, well hang on a minute, I’m not worthy. And in fact, a friend of mine, I know she was trying to be kind, but she said, well you just have to accept that your big jobs are behind you now. I was like,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (16:30)
No.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (16:35)
lot

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (16:34)
No.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (16:35)
of lashes to give, there’s no way. And it kind of knocked me over.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (16:44)
Did you tell them that?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (16:46)
No, I’ve never told her actually, never. she watched and she was going to find it out. I didn’t do anything and I was quite, it actually hit me quite deeply because I had always thought I was invincible, that I could do anything, I could break any glass ceiling there was. And now I was in a situation where no one ever wanted to talk to me. I could not get an interview for Love or Money. And when I did get one,

I never got to a second one. And I couldn’t understand it. And on my platform, I have spoken to, I’m going to say thousands of people, because it would be, thousands of women in particular, who face something almost identical.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (17:39)
Yeah. So when we talk about ageism in the workplace, what are we actually saying?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (17:52)
It’s actually a really tricky one, ageism in the workplace, theoretically it doesn’t exist. I’d

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (18:00)
called bullshit so

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (18:02)
definitely call it, because theoretically, particularly in the countries we live in, equality is active. It’s absolutely not. I can assure you of that.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (18:20)
Let’s start to point out all of the members of community who feel that that is not true.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (18:26)
Yes, and it doesn’t take long to run quite a big list on that. So what I find, and again it’s through having spoken to so many people, I think at one point I would have had the largest insights panel in my DMs, probably in the world, when it got to the subject of mental health I got thousands and thousands of DMs, which

broke my heart and I actually did a podcast on it because I was so upset about it and it actually comes as a direct result of how ageism plays out. So for women, women will start to notice it particularly when they’re around their mid-40s.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (19:15)
Hmm.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (19:17)
Why do you think that might be?

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (19:20)
menopause.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (19:21)
No.

Which if I asked anyone they will say the same thing, menopause. No.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (19:29)
What is it?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (19:32)
It hasn’t impacted you and I this particular one, but it’s when women start to have grey hair. Because until we’re about 45, we look like ourselves. Our face doesn’t really undergo much of a change. And then somewhere in like 20, 42, 3, 4, 5, 6, somewhere around that, we start to get some lines or maybe some…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (19:58)
Yeah, I’ll gel

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (20:00)
And the gray in the hair, just natural parts of aging. And now we are somehow that’s tied to our worth, which is an absolute load of rubbish. Somehow it’s tied to our worth. then…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (20:16)
perception of our worth.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (20:18)
And that plays out in your how you may go forward with roles.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (20:29)
Look it’s not lost and you say we haven’t faced it. mean it is not lost on me and this is going to sound egotistical so I need to be careful how I phrase it. But it is not lost on me that how I present has worked in my favour.

And that should not be the case. But it is not lost on me that that be the case.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (20:57)
correct and because you present as younger. But yet you have all the wisdom and experience of a woman in her sixties which is extraordinary.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (21:10)
So

why the hell did it look like

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (21:13)
your cognitive well-being.

but there’s this very, very outdated belief around age, which I would love to explore with you. And it determines our worth and the eye of employers. And women will start to feel it in their mid-40s around their progression, the value they may have in meetings, how…

when there are cuts and people get pushed out women will now really struggle to get back into the workforce particularly when they’re in their 50s. The further up their 50s they go this gets much much harder. Di, how many weeks do you think if you were out in the workforce now and you’d lost your role in Australia

that you would be out of work for as a woman in her early 60s.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (22:17)
would hope it’s only, I think if it’s a senior level role there’s less of them. So at the point you know the tree. So my advice would it could be three to six months but I have a horrible feeling you’re gonna say it’s a hell of a lot longer.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (22:34)
No, it is horrible. In Australia, and you will have a large Australian audience, the average time that a woman in her 50s will be out of work is 86 weeks.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (22:53)
86 weeks, a year and a half.

I’m almost tempted, you know, I’ve still been headhunted up until the last 18 months, but because I’ve made it so very clear that I do not wish to pursue the executive search space that has come back, I am almost tempted to poke the bear and pretend to start to apply for a job and see what…

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (23:23)
I think you might be in a slightly interesting position because if they can’t guess you’re a… because remember that…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (23:30)
I

it from my LinkedIn. My LinkedIn will tell it. I wouldn’t hide it.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (23:35)
What happens is When you apply for a role, in the most part now a machine is doing the reading and one looks for things that age you. And if I look back now to the … School.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (23:50)
Blah, blah, Qualification

year. Blah,

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (23:54)
What

It does, looks, it’s looking for them. And when you talk about any types of technology or things like that, anything that enables it to work out how old you are.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (24:06)
So the algorithm’s biased to start with, that’s what you’re saying.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (24:10)
It

is biased to begin with because the person who will enter the details into the system will most likely be a younger hiring manager

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (24:21)
Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (24:22)
and their own personal bias will lean into this and that’s a huge problem. So when I look back at the CVs I was writing, I look back and now I couldn’t have got it more wrong if I tried.

Every, I presented my CDs as if I was still doing them, let’s call it a decade earlier, they were stunning, they almost like a piece of art.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (24:53)
Yeah, and they were working against you.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (24:55)
anywhere they will go nowhere

absolutely nowhere you’re penalized for that kind of

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (25:03)
and and yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (25:04)
I’ve actually started, I mean I’ve helped a lot of people rewriting their CVs and their LinkedIn’s to get them fit for purpose so they can get work. And last week I had two people on the same day, one had been out of work for 24 months in the US and a woman in New Zealand. He was about to lose his home, and a woman in New Zealand

who had applied for her dream job. She hadn’t even got an interview. I redid her and her LinkedIn and she got all the way through and got the job.

So it’s how we with ageism is pretty darn cruel. It is baked into the hiring algorithms.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (25:53)
I’m married to the media in Australia, I know how damn cruel it is.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (25:57)
And so you, it’s…

I think it’s what most people of our vintage won’t know that the way they show up authentically as themselves will not get them a job in 2026.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (26:17)
Yeah. Yet how prepared is the average person to be told that they need to address that without that being damn confronting? mean, if you and I said, okay, let’s pitch a tent tomorrow and start a business and say, let’s get women 50 and older job ready. How many people do you think we would offend if we said, okay.

We’re gonna have to address looks, we’re gonna have to address what you say on paper, but they’re gonna go.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (26:50)
It’s a really interesting question that you had. I spoke at a Chief People Officer Summit and I was quite brutal in my wording of some things in there because I wanted them to really get it because at a global level, I don’t think anyone else would probably have as much feedback as I had about specific things. My DMs…

I would go to sleep at about 12, set my alarm to wake up at 3 to answer all the things so then get…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (27:22)
I’ve received emails from you on New Zealand time and I know it is well past midnight.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (27:29)
Because

I can’t, because I try really hard to respond to everybody. Because so many people get ghosted. want to, I don’t want to be that person.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (27:39)
Yeah, I know that feeling.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (27:41)
I’m not sure how sustainable it is at 20,000 followers, but I try very hard. Because it’s not a me, it’s a we. You know, we have a movement for 58 and unapologetic and we are collectively

pushing back against ageism. And I think when it comes to, I guess there’s a couple of things. How prepared is anybody to be out of work for around 86 weeks? Almost no.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (28:11)
Yeah.

Unless you’ve already prepared yourself for retirement, nobody is.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (28:17)
And sadly, most women who are in their 63, 45 will never get back in the workforce.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (28:27)
Yeah, and they probably had broken careers for all the reasons that we know and their superannuation is not in top shape and it’s… and it’s a real issue.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (28:39)
which is

when they face you know divorce they come off very poorly and as you know in Australia because it’s pretty well documented the cases of women in particular who are living in substandard living because

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (28:57)
Yeah, because of this, exactly this.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (29:00)
And this is a primary feeder to that. I, it’s objectable to me. just, I find it deeply upsetting, which is why I try so hard to help so many people. And one of the things with that is, one of the discoveries I made, Di, is that we don’t reach our cognitive peak until our late 50s, early 60s.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (29:26)
Wow. So look what the workforce is missing out on.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (29:31)
And once I tell…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (29:33)
And I know that in myself that I’m at my intellectual peak. I know that. You would know that in yourself.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (29:44)
I feel confident in who I am, how

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (29:47)
Mmm.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (29:48)
I am, and in

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (29:51)
Your breadth of knowledge.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (29:55)
And I think when you are dealing with people who are really broken, and what I’ve discovered has broken so many people, and you will really appreciate this from your career, is when you think that you are of value, and then you find not only can you not get a job, you cannot, no one will even reply to you. And I’ve got…

I’ve got people who’ve had 250 or 300 CVs go out and not just crickets.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (30:29)
Yeah, that’s soul destroying.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (30:31)
Absolutely

nothing back. And then you will take and then your life will start to fall apart. I had a particular woman who was a lawyer in the UK who lost her job during COVID and then she took me on a journey of how much her life spiraled downward and she tried to take her own life. And a lot of it

came down to the fact that she just couldn’t get seen anymore.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (31:05)
And

that’s somebody with the smarts to hold a law degree.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (31:09)
She was 50 and no one wanted to know her. because we had these beliefs around ageing, it was just so utterly out of date.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (31:18)
Coming up, more about combating age discrimination in the workforce.

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. I’m talking with Jacqueline Freeman, founder of 58 and Unapologetic. Hey, Jack, something I haven’t asked you. Are you going to change the name of the business every year that you turn older?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (31:49)
No, lots of people have asked me that. When I

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (31:51)
I know it’s a cheeky question but it’s one I’d go through my

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (31:58)
began, when I talked about that very first post, basically I said, look, I’m 58 and I’m unapologetic.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (32:05)
Yep, and you’re gonna stay 58 forever now? Bloody clever!

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (32:07)
And

then people started to go, I’m 57 and unapologetic, I’m 82 and unapologetic. I started getting all these messages from these amazing women who would say what age they were and they’re unapologetic. So when I turned 59, which was on the 1st of March, I did a post about that I was 59 and completely unapologetic.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (32:34)
I saw that

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (32:35)
I wouldn’t be changing the name. No, will forever be a movement of 58-year-olds.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (32:42)
Yeah,

it’s not apologetic. Yeah, there you go. So you’re always going to be 58. That’s very clever.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (32:47)
I’m gonna age down, I’m gonna be the beans even faster.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (32:51)
Well funny you should say that my my brother’s long-term partner says and she’s she’s into fitness in a big way and done some amazing things she’s only a couple of years younger than I am and and we often talk about our Benjamin Button reality because we we’ve both become younger through our pursuits of wellness and and health so and probably metabolic

Metabolically speaking, we’re probably away, away younger than.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (33:24)
than we would be and I think sort of a lovely segue into can I share with you about how we age now and think to

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (33:35)
Yes, yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (33:37)
share this with people it helps them stand taller and I love that and they feel really good about themselves so I think if I share with you how I believe our

views on aging were…

framed in many ways, not completely, but this certainly led into it. In the later 1800s Otto von Bismarck designed the

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (34:12)
Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (34:14)
And that was, at 65 you would get a pension. Average life expectancy if you survived infancy was 61. So those payouts weren’t great. That scheme was picked up by the Western world and it went through some changes in the 20s and in the 50s and the 70s. And here we are in 2026.

where we are now living 100 year lives. Our retirement schemes around the world are in New Zealand we’re 65

It’s in the UK it was 65 for men and 60 for women and now it is 67 for men and 67 for women. Imagine being a woman who got hit with that when you were doing your savings scheme to knowing you could be paid something at 60. It moved to 65 and then to 67. It just grandfathered its way out.

and Finland is 72. know, so there is a, because no country can afford it anymore.

can afford it which is why it is moving up and why it’s been talked about so much in New Zealand as well as

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (35:41)
Moving up, but you still can’t get a job because we’re still rooted to the old view.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (35:46)
Then

if you go, Okay, well if I’m a woman in my late 40s and I lose my job and I live in Australia, I can’t get a job but I can…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (35:56)
I’ve

got 30 years until I can’t access retirement funds

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (36:01)
Can’t get a pension until I’m 70, How am going to live? What am I going to do? And this is the reality and no one’s talking about it. If I look at your government for as an example because I have a wonderful follower who he does some investigation on different governments and their

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (36:21)
Yeah, don’t look at ours. It’s pretty ordinary.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (36:24)
Yours is absolutely terrible for aging. I see In my naivety when I began I assumed that

all governments would have

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (36:42)
Plans for this.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (36:43)
jobs for life you know you started and you aged out you know you got your gold watch you know but if you look at Australia and New Zealand it’s really no different as is the UK and Canada because I’ve seen these as well they’re all terrible they are not a good employer of people who are aging they’re absolutely terrible. they are falling for the same rot that every other business is

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (37:10)
So are organisations consciously making this decision around ageist strategic moves?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (37:21)
No, I don’t think so. think what it is is we are all brought up based on, if you think of the Western world, we’re fixated on a number. it’s their fifth birthday. it’s their 21st. it’s your 40 and you’ve got a card that says you’re over the hill. It starts at 40, you’re over the hill. You’re not even halfway through at 40. You’re cultured to peak is still 20 years away. And so I think we had these

inbuilt beliefs around how age works. But the reality is we’ve actually moved almost a generation in our wellbeing and I would argue you’ve moved four, moved even more because of the conscious effort that you and your, let’s call it your sister-in-law have made in it, which is, so a 70 year old today has the same

Cognitive well-being as a 53 year old head in the year 2000

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (38:23)
Yeah, that’s yesterday. That is such a shift in such a short

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (38:28)
And so literally we have, we are about, on average, about 20 years younger than our grandmothers were the

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (38:37)
Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (38:37)
same age. I’ve got a wonderful post, a lovely follower of mine called Pamela, Pamela Green actually. She shared a photograph of her Nana at, I think Pamela in the photograph, I might have to correct myself on this, I think is 55, 54, 55, something like that.

and she looks amazing and she posted a photograph of her grandmother at the same age going to her

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (39:06)
That’s an interesting thing to do.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (39:10)
They are night and day.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (39:13)
day.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (39:15)
So this is what aging looked like in the 50s. You can’t recognize the two people at all. so when you put them up like for like, you get a very clear view on how much things have changed.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (39:29)
Yeah, need we need a campaign of that because that is I mean visually such a powerful thing. Yeah. Yeah

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (39:37)
And what’s happened is…

in our psyche because we’ve been brought up this way, all of us, we still see Pamela’s manner.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (39:50)
Yeah, when we hear that number. And AI is going to see that because AI is being fed with all of the biases that we’ve just talked about. So AI is going to perpetuate it. So there’s no point in asking you, is AI playing a role in this? The question is, how the hell do we stop AI perpetuating this and making it worse?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (40:17)
So there are sort of the systems that run the recruitment world. There’s about six of them that are the most dominant ones around the Western world.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (40:29)
Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (40:32)
Some of them are slightly better than others. Some have a bit more of a human factor in them. There’s one built out of New York that he was involved in a previous rendition of one and moved away from it to recreate one that had a bit more.

humanity to it, let’s call it. But where I go, those systems don’t operate on their own. They must be fed with information that is coming from the employer. So I go back to employers and say, which is what I did at this Chief People Officer Conference, I was quite strong minded about this one.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (41:11)
I’d only get invited to one of those jacks that throw me out

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (41:15)
Oh,

I don’t know that I’d be invited back. I called it out and there was a woman in the room and I said, you know, how many of you are the same age as me? That stage is 58 and one would end up grey hair. And I said, do you know if you were in Australia today and you’re out of work that it would take 86 weeks for you to get a job? And I said, and part of that is because your hair is grey.

She was offended by that.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (41:45)
I’m sure she was.

That’s the facts. Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (41:51)
She will employ people.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (41:53)
That’s why I said, how do you think we would go if we pitched a tent and said to people, these are some of the changes you need to make to fight this?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (42:04)
If you think of it like Trini and Susanna, when they were there, know, maybe that’s what we should be doing because

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (42:12)
Maybe it is.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (42:13)
as a way to get people, I’ve already, as we spoke about off camera, I’ve been already helping people get fit online and that is working. But it is more than that. Because at some point, if you get through the interview, sorry, through the

through the AI and the online process, you’re going to have to turn up physically at some point.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (42:39)
Yeah, I have a feeling 58 and unapologetic is meeting power of women and somehow we’re going to do something about this. Because we’re pretty well credentialed to do something about this.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (42:52)
It’s like a plague that is running through them. What upsets me the most, and again I mention this off camera, is how much women’s mental health is impacted by this stuff. And I take huge offense to this because when I tell women that they haven’t even reached their cognitive peak, or

You’re you’re right in it. And when they hear that, it’s a joyous thing to be heard, because they think that, they feel that they’re actually just too old now. And the world has told them they’re too old and they don’t matter. And I am very loudly shouting, you do matter. Now that brings up a really interesting point, which I want to share with your, that your great people who follow you.

I went from having this very, very big voice on LinkedIn to all of a sudden just falling silent. I’m like,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:05)
and that wasn’t what you did.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (44:08)
people not, people stopped liking my content. Cindy Gallup made me aware of

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:19)
I’ve been reading some of her work.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (44:21)
Algorithm throttling.

And when you are someone who speaks up loudly on what is considered controversial subjects, for example, women.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:34)
Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (44:37)
ageism, that

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:38)
Hmm

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (44:39)
LinkedIn will suppress your communications.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:46)
I have a feeling LinkedIn doesn’t like the name Power of Women.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (44:50)
Yes. Well, what I’ve found, I mean, there’s been lots of testing by women on this and they’ve all found that if they represent themselves as men,

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (44:59)
Well, I spoke to Jas Badir only the other day and she represents herself as a man on LinkedIn.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (45:06)
There you go.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (45:09)
Isn’t that screwed up in so many ways?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (45:13)
was thinking surely not right so I you know wrote some more posts and they’re getting nowhere I was getting no

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (45:20)
I’m going to test that. Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (45:22)
I was getting no traction and so there was a man who popped up on one of the, I don’t know if it was on Meta or wherever I saw it, but he was talking about it and because if you talk about it on LinkedIn that also suppresses you. You can’t, you’ve got to do it way over here, it’s your thing aye. And so I asked him could he have a look at mine, so he went to my previous seven,

posts and all of them had been in pictures.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (45:56)
He could see that.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (45:58)
Yeah, yes, he could. He said all seven of yours have been impacted because the math doesn’t work. I got to some stage, I had one impression for one person. It doesn’t work like that. The math doesn’t work like that. I mean, I work in media, which is why I know I’m like, this, you know, this is, this is really bad math. And, and so what it does is it lets you storm out into the wilderness to see if you are

attractive to followers and then as you grow them and it gives you a false sense of identity. I’ve had loads of people go hey I’m you know I’ve been I’ve picked up on what you’re doing and I’ve now my poster’s done this and I said

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (46:43)
Just wait.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (46:44)
come back to me when you’ve got three that look like that and they’ve all disappeared. It’s very hard you’ve got to you’ve got to keep going through the you’ve got to be a bit careful how you write.

On average, it can last up to five weeks. I’ve had two lots of five-weekers where I get suppressed.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (47:04)
You would have thought, you know, you can go out on the dark web with some horrendous, be it pornographic, extremist views and writing the facts on a credible platform like LinkedIn gets you throttled. I mean, that’s a WTF moment if ever there was one.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (47:28)
I could not agree with you more. I was really shocked. I did quite a bit of research on it and in fact I was so upset about it. I thought, you know what, one of my followers was well connected to the CEO of LinkedIn Asia Pacific. I said, so I went online, wrote to

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (47:52)
Yes, that’s yes, I’m inclined to do that straight to the source.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (47:56)
He ignored me. So I went back and said, I’m going to be in your comms every single day until you reply.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (48:06)
I love you.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (48:09)
Within two days he was thinking, my god, I’ve got to get rid of it.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (48:13)
Yeah

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (48:14)
And he sent me a whole lot of baloney about it. look, some of it I can accept, is, and even I’ve worked this out, which is, LinkedIn doesn’t make its money from huge follower bases. They make their money from people who aren’t getting enough traction, who need to buy advertising to promote themselves. That’s the…

the model.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (48:39)
There’s the uncomfortable truth in that, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (48:44)
And so.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (48:45)
And so YouTube will be the same with follow, they’ll all be exactly the same.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (48:52)
That’s how they make money. They can’t make money with you getting really big and talking to lots

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (48:57)
successful simply utilizing their platform and spending not a cent to do it.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (49:02)
paying

you know your $80 a month subscription fee. They’re not happy with that.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (49:09)
I need my head spinning about how does large fall. Yeah, there’s a more podcasts to be had Jack. I. Yeah, interesting, isn’t it? One of my.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (49:24)
who is a man in his 70s from the UK who does, he’s phenomenal. He teaches young women around engineering and he’s on lots of boards and he’s a massive advocate for women. I love him. And he went to help his things get through when he talks about women. So he spoke to me about this directly. They will use a naught rather than an O.

just as these little forms of trickery to make sure his own work where he is talking about women doesn’t get throttled.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (50:00)
Isn’t that interesting?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (50:02)
based on how when my posts are allowed to extend.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (50:12)
Run free.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (50:14)
I probably should have about 45,000 followers by now. I get shrunk back all the time. I go through shrink back stages.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (50:22)
And I do suspect I am being penalized just by the mere brand name. what I say beyond that. isn’t it interesting, when Jazz said this the other day, and I’ve certainly read what Cindy’s saying and talking about it now, I don’t know why I haven’t turned the mirror on myself and said, I experiencing that? Because, I mean, that’s my Veronica.

course I’m experiencing that. So it’s an interesting one.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (50:56)
can get bit tangled up and I’ve had some where I thought I’ve had it here’s a simple simple way for you to check it if you use CHEBT just take a screenshot of on your LinkedIn or where when you when you go you can view your

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (51:15)
stats, analytics.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (51:19)
and just get LinkedIn sorry just keep CHEBT analyzing for you it’ll tell you

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (51:23)
That’s interesting. I do know that if I stop writing about issues specifically around power of women and write about life events on health and wellbeing, they go through the roof.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (51:37)
The way to tell, the way you can really tell is if the impression number is not matching up because sometimes we just write posts that people are more interested in than others. So we have to accept that. But it’s about the math between the impression number and let me just open mine for a quick second now so I can get the right terminology for you, my darling.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (52:08)
I am taking down more notes than ever.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (52:11)
LinkedIn must be listening to us, it won’t let me open it. Bye.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (52:13)
Yeah, well isn’t that interesting?

Yeah, that won’t be a coincidence.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (52:21)
Truly,

that’s my London. It’s gone completely.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (52:23)
I know they listen. I mean, we know they listen. Let me see whether mine will let me.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (52:29)
Serious? can’t open it at all.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (52:34)
You’ve been cancelled. You’re in deep shit.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (52:37)
I can’t get onto my own. Isn’t that funny?

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (52:39)
Isn’t that bizarre?

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (52:41)
It’s just a strange little coincidence there. But what it does mean is for people who are campaigning for women as we are, it makes it harder. And so it means there’s got to be more of us. So you asked about, is it a conscious…

application by employers around age and I don’t believe that

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (53:10)
I think it’s an unconscious bias.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (53:13)
it is unconscious bias that we have been brought up to believe and I try to spend quite a bit of my time educating followers around followers who are most likely and I’ve got a huge C-suite

About 40, 50 % of my followers are C-suite. So, doing positions of authority. I want them to understand that all their beliefs around ageing are completely outdated. And so, the very people that you are pushing out should be the very people you’re pulling in. The most valuable…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (53:55)
In. Yeah.

If there was any message to close on, that is it. The people you are not interviewing and not bringing into your businesses are in fact exactly the ones that you should be. Maybe I have to go back and start a search firm for over 50s.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (54:22)
Well, I think there’s so much for you and I to talk about.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (54:27)
There is.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (54:28)
The subject is very broad.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (54:32)
Mmmmm.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (54:33)
It’s got a lot of challenges in it, and we have to have more people brave enough to speak up about it. And

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (54:41)
Yeah, I think that’s right.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (54:44)
also just to educate. You know, don’t know what you don’t know.

And we have to help people to break open those, that bias that you have. And I think the thing that I, my goal, I would love this. In fact, when I spoke to the chief people officers, it went nowhere by the way.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (55:10)
And they’re not having you back because you poked a bear.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (55:14)
and it is, I wanted the thought, I thought of New Zealand being a lighthouse. We were the first country to give one the vote, you know. Why could we not be a lighthouse around equality, true equality when hiring? And by its very nature, people who are over would get a job because they would be the most experienced.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (55:38)
experienced and the most in demand.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (55:42)
But the fact that that went nowhere, kind of tells me a lot. I’m quite determined. I tried it even through one of the recruitment companies, one of the globals. I loved the idea. It went all the way to the head office. I’m going to say it’s New York because I can’t quite remember where they’re from.

but you know them, where I wanted to see if I could have a global recruiter making its position around true equality and what that meant. And this particular recruiter doesn’t use any AI. How good is that? Love it. it over.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (56:31)
Interesting. Well, I was headhunted.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (56:35)
It fell over.

It fell over. They couldn’t fund such an idea and the funding on it was very light.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (56:41)
Yeah, you see the recruitment industry is intrinsically biased. I don’t think the search space as much so and in actual fact when I was headhunted in 2023 and I said and I was headhunted out of Europe and I said to them, do you know how old I am? They said firstly, yes and secondly, we don’t care. Wasn’t that refreshing. And that was one of the top four shrek.

out of the search firms. And that was great to hear, but I don’t think many people have heard that,

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (57:17)
I think that is becoming, we can’t say that there aren’t people getting jobs because of course they are. I work for the television broadcasters, they know exactly how old I am and I’ve got a wonderful contract with them. They support the work that I do which is fantastic.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (57:39)
Yeah, but not everybody’s as outspoken. So there’s a whole lot of things coming together that don’t make you the standard.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (57:47)
No, and I think, but I want, we have to help each of our employers and we do have to, and when you mentioned it earlier about how can we help women, you know, in our reinvented Trini and Susanna, know, Jack and Di, there is an absolute…

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:07)
There’s a song already for that, Jack and Diane. Of course, there is. There is. So this is meant to be. That’s how we

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (58:14)
I’ll eat them.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:15)
Yeah. That’s how we do it. Yep.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (58:18)
think there’s, I know already where the gaps are.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:22)
Yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (58:23)
And so do you. when I got, I was thrilled when I, this one in the morning and one in the evening, when they told me they’d got a role, and then I had to tell the other one, this one. And they were thrilled for that person.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:39)
Yeah, we see that’s what we want.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (58:41)
We do, we want more people feeling, more people.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:45)
Celebrating other people, yeah.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (58:47)
feeling uplifted and feeling like a valuable member of society because they are.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (58:54)
Well, we’re going to run out of time today, Jack, but what I’m going to say to the listeners who have stayed with us to the end of this podcast is you and I are going to have more conversations. We know that. What I want to hear from our listeners is what do they want us to tackle around this big hairy issue being ageism and visibility and

where that intersects in wellbeing and employment and all aspects of their lives. So I think I’m gonna throw it out to the listeners if you would let us know what you wanna hear more about from Jack and I because we are going to talk again and we might turn that anthem into an absolute calling, Jack and Diane.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (59:45)
Gotta be.

DI GILLETT [ Power Of Women Podcast Host] (59:47)
Beautiful. Thanks, Jack. Until next time.

JACQUELINE FREEMAN [Guest] (59:50)
It’s

been an absolute pleasure, Di. Thank you for having me.

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:48 Navigating Experience and Ageism

06:04 The Impact of Age on Employment

11:59 Redundancy and Its Emotional Toll

17:52 Understanding Ageism in the Workplace

23:58 The Role of Perception and Bias

29:47 The Consequences of Ageism on Mental Health

30:52 Age Discrimination in the Workforce

33:47 Changing Perspectives on Aging

35:21 Retirement Age and Employment Challenges

37:18 Unconscious Bias in Hiring Practices

40:14 The Role of AI in Ageism

43:18 Mental Health and Ageism

53:31 The Value of Older Workers

56:34 The Future of Age Inclusivity in Employment

 

Connect with Di:

Connect with Di on LinkedIn

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Contact Di

 

Find Jacqueline Freeman at:

Website https://58andunapologetic.com

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinefreeman-763ab891

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/58andunapologetic/

 

This is the home of unapologetic conversations and powerful stories of reinvention. New episodes drop every 2nd Monday to fuel your week with insights on leadership, resilience, and success. Subscribe and join a community of women who are changing the game.

 

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Ultra-Processed Food Is Poison – Kate Save Tells Us Why

Ultra-Processed Food Is Poison – Kate Save Tells Us Why

by | Jul 13, 2026 | Health & Wellbeing, Women's Health

Ultra-processed food now makes up 40% of the average Australian diet. In America, that figure sits at 70%. And if the trend holds – and Kate Save believes it will – we are not far behind.

Kate is a clinical dietitian, exercise physiologist, diabetes educator, and the founder of Be Fit Food. She has spent over 20 years watching what happens to bodies when people eat what the food industry tells them is food. And in this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, she is done softening the message.

In this conversation, Di Gillett and Kate Save dig into the real drivers of chronic disease in Australia, why the weight loss drug industry is setting people up for a second round of failure, and why BMI has no business being the primary measure of anyone’s health. Kate also shares the three things every Australian woman can do differently today: not a program, not a subscription, just three changes rooted in 20 years of clinical evidence.

 

➡️You’ll Hear :

Why ultra-processed food is not a ‘sometimes food’ – it’s not food at all

The mental health study that should have changed healthcare funding, and didn’t

What visceral fat tells us that BMI never could

How women’s bodies respond differently to diet and why the approach needs to reflect that

Kate’s own 90-10 rule and how she eats on the road

The dark chocolate method for coming off sugar without going cold turkey – and it is a winner.

 

Key Takeaways:

Remove as many ultra-processed foods as possible – they are not a neutral choice

As you age, become more conscious of your carbohydrate intake and protect your muscle mass

Strength training is non-negotiable for women navigating hormonal change

The 1:1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio is a simple rule with significant impact

One annual reset – even just a week – compounds over time into lasting change.

 

Kate said:

“Ultra-processed foods are literally poison. They really are.”

“We don’t have a healthcare system. We have a sick care system.”

“The weight gain is just the end result of not looking after yourself — or the environment not allowing you to be your best health.”

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (00:02)

Kate, power of women, who comes to mind when I say that?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (00:07)

Actually my parents, and this might sound odd, but I think my dad played such an important role in my sister and I’s life growing up that he empowered us and Mum had to fight for her power so it both of them.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (00:22)

Very good. I don’t often have a guy or dad present it for Power of Women, so I love that.

 

and we’re a storytelling platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. So today we’re going to interrogate, we really what we eat?

 

And it’s one of those phrases that we have heard so many times that it’s almost lost its edge. But my guest today is going to give its edge. She’s a clinician, an entrepreneur, Shark Tank contestant and founder of Be Fit Food. And she spent 20 years on the front line of what happens when people eat what the food industry actually tells us is food. And a trigger warning because we are going to poke

 

just a few beers throughout the conversation. Joining me in the wonderful chocolate studios in South Melbourne, KATE Save, welcome to the Power Of Women.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (01:37)

Thank you for having me, Di.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (01:40)

Kate, I know there’ll be listeners who will know your name from Shark Tank or they’ve been purchasing your fabulous product on the shelves or been in a clinical setting with you, but I want to understand who you were before all of that. Who’s the young woman who said food and wellbeing was going to be where you put your focus?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (02:04)

Well, it was the person who has never believed that food had the power to heal rather than just make people sick. And in this day and age, I think as well, food is blamed for a lot of sickness, but the food that we’re blaming isn’t really food.

 

But for me, my journey was ⁓ starting as a young child who had tummy aches all the time and my parents were told that it was what I was eating that was making me sick. But my parents knew that I ate really well and that was highly unlikely and they were told perhaps it was dairy and I was lactose intolerant. So we never had dairy. I didn’t even really try dairy until

 

I found out that when yogurt was popular in my teen years that it was lower lactose because of the way that it’s made and that was sort of my first real exposure to dairy so I knew it wasn’t food.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (03:00)

That was the starting point. Yeah. Did you get to the bottom of what it was?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (03:04)

Well, it took 19 years and just before my 20th birthday I had an MRI after 18 years of investigation and they said you’ve got a tumour in your bile duct and you need emergency surgery. ⁓ wow. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (03:20)

Wow, and did that resolve it?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (03:23)

Well, mostly it caused other issues. So a lot of my anatomy was removed and rejoined and the body doesn’t like that. Fit’s not built like that. ⁓ hence my further interest in nutrition and not being medicated for the things that didn’t go so well for the surgery and finding a way to help the body adapt and take control again.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (03:49)

of personal experience. Yeah. So you trained as a dietitian and exercise physiologist, but you went further than that. You were running clinics in private hospitals and managing complex patients. I mean, I could say your own story was one of the most complex patients, but is there, without naming names, ⁓ a patient that comes to mind that set you on the

 

that became Be Fit Food.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (04:22)

Really the biggest instigator was working at a bariatric surgery clinic and not one particular patient but 100 % of the patients that had got into the situation where they didn’t think their weight was reversible by any other means other than the surgery and yes for some people metabolically things can go down that path so far that

 

no matter what they do without other interventions, it’s a really hard, long path and some people would say you can’t do it and then there are definitely outliers where people have done it without surgery and medication but for me, I just knew we were setting them up for failure by not teaching them how to eat and starting their whole weight loss journey with synthetic bars and shakes to get them to lose weight before the surgery which shrunk the liver.

 

that permitted the surgeon to actually operate at a lower risk. So I wanted to create a whole food version that would shrink the liver and allow the surgery to go ahead, but also teach the person in that two to six weeks before surgery how to eat. So once they’d had the surgery.

 

That was embedded for the rest of their life rather than this taste for chocolate shakes and synthetic bars, which after around two years we would find when people started regaining weight, they thought the way to lose weight was mere replacement shakes.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (05:54)

is the weight loss drug industry doing exactly the same thing in saying, we’re not going to train you, how do we, we’re just going to give you the quick fix with no education behind a long term process to sustainable, better fuel in our system.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (06:17)

So this is such a multifaceted question because if you go to a well-resourced GP clinic where they involve a multidisciplinary team where they might have dietitians, exercise physiologists, psychologists, then they may be capable of putting someone on the weight loss medication.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (06:21)

one of the bears.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (06:43)

and seeing it through with the support of all the other health professionals, whether they’re on that medication for life, which is what is recommended by the drug companies because all of the way to dates have shown that when you go off the drug, you do regain the weight. So the idea is you go on it and you stay on it. However, well, I don’t even know if that would be

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (06:53)

Fit is.

 

Isn’t that clever?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (07:09)

I mean, they’re looking at other drugs now that will sort of help with the maintenance post that drug. But ⁓ I don’t even know if that’s what they intended because realistically, it becomes a problem for them. because then all of a sudden, people are saying the drug doesn’t work. Well, it does whilst you’re using it and you’re compliant and you’re eating the right way and your mindset.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (07:24)

So

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (07:36)

is in the right place and your sweet cravings are gone, but they show even on the drug. So you get this huge drop in your sweet cravings at the start and then like in the first six months and at 12 months you don’t have the cravings, it’s coming back a little bit, but by two years it’s really sort of worn off. So if people haven’t learned how to have a healthier lifestyle in that two years, then they’ve become reliant on the drug and that’s tough.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (08:05)

Fit is and they haven’t learned how to fight that craving themselves. I know in giving up sugar myself in in 2023 there are still the odd occasion where it’s like, but I know how to fight it through mindset but I wouldn’t if I thought I’m just relying on the drug to do the work for me.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (08:18)

Yes.

 

So true, and if you didn’t have 30 to 50 kilos to lose as well, it’s just you’re not reliant on looking at the scales for change for positive reinforcement. Your positive reinforcement is that you had less sugar. Whereas a lot of the time, the less sugar is tied to the number on the scales. And if the number of the scales isn’t moving, then the less sugar becomes… Yeah, yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (08:48)

a irrelevant.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (08:51)

People are tying their health to the weight on the scales, which is not accurate because that’s whole of gravity on earth. Fit’s got nothing to do with our body composition. obesity was previously the category, was categorized by BMI, but that’s no longer the case either. ⁓ Obesity is now a multifactorial health condition, which is now classified by the metabolic health conditions.

 

that are associated and body composition instead of BMI because it’s about how much of your weight is lean body mass and how much of it is actually fat mass. And is that fat mass the hazardous fat mass, not the stuff that sits under the skin, but is it the visceral fat that’s causing chronic disease? And what I thought was really interesting is if people go for liposuction, have all their fat cells pulled out,

 

if they go for a health test to check their risk of diabetes and things that no, doesn’t change. So just removing fat cells is not the problem. The problem is actually in the whole system, the functioning of the system. we’re not one particular cell, so you can’t just pull a part out and think that’s going to fix the problems where we’re so much more complex and obesity is so much more complex.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (09:51)

What change?

 

BMI have any relevance at all as a measure in this DNA?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (10:19)

If you don’t have access to any other tools, I would still say over BMI, I would use waist circumference because it’s actually the waist that’s around your middle that is going to dictate your risk of chronic disease more so than your BMI. BMI is a population-based number, so it’s something that you can use as a bit of an average, but people aren’t averages, they’re individuals. So until you know…

 

what their lean body mass is and you really want to understand their lifestyle as well because there could be people out there that have got a reasonable lean body mass and a reasonable weight but if they have a terrible lifestyle because they’re highly stressed, they’re not eating a nutritious diet, it’s more of a starvation diet and if they’re not doing the work in terms of the physical activity and even cardiovascular health so they could be doing strength without anything else for

 

other parts of the body. ⁓ Fit still doesn’t mean you’re healthy and people try and oversimplify it.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (11:22)

I was fit, I was a size 10, I ate healthily except for my sugar addiction and when I gave up sugar I have lost 16 centimetres off my waist. I was visually a lean-ish looking person, but it 16 centimetres. there ⁓

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (11:40)

Wow

 

Yeah, that’s incredible. That’s really incredible and that was probably insulin resistant. So insulin is a fat storage hormone that would have been directing weight towards the middle and no doubt you were going through female changes.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (12:05)

Absolutely.

 

I was coming out the back end of menopause. I was 60 when I gave up. 59. So yeah. I had no idea there was that level of fat even sitting on my body.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (12:09)

Rise.

 

Yeah.

 

That’s incredible that such a, you know, one shift in your behaviour could give that change. I think if there’s one takeaway for people as well is just pick something you can stick to. Fit doesn’t matter what you do. If you’re consistent and you stick to it, you will see improvement.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (12:36)

There you go. So what’s your relationship like with food, Kate? Do you have moments like any of us where you want to splurge or treat yourself?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (12:48)

I must say I enjoy food freedom, but I have my own little nuances in my head that give me that food freedom. For example, a lot of people say it’s the 80-20 rule. And for me, I think it’s more of a 90-10. And that’s only because if I had more time in my day, I would exercise more, and then it could be 80-20. But if I eat bad food 20 % of the time, and I don’t have hours to exercise.

 

it’s not going to work for me. So 90-10 means I eat well because I enjoy good food most of the time but then I can have whatever I want in that 10 % and you never pay the price for that because you do enough to stay healthy that your body will actually become metabolically flexible and it will burn more calories when you’re eating more calories.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (13:37)

And I mean, before we started recording today, you said you’ve had two days of ridiculously early, early flights. so you’ve learned to manage your regime to fit that, and that is such a discipline.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (13:52)

Prioritising food when you are busy is so important if it’s the only thing you do. I mean of course if you can do walking meetings and all those sorts of things but if you’re physically tired to a desk or on a plane and it’s just not possible then when you have an opportunity to eat and that will come up at some point in the day whether it’s something you’re buying.

 

Prioritize, like think about what is going to nourish me and that’s it’s so important we are.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (14:25)

do

 

do when you travel? Do you take food with you so that you’ve got the right food at your disposal at whatever time? Or how do do it?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (14:34)

would take emergency snacks in my bag, so I would always have, whether it’s in my car or in my briefcase, I’ve got raw nuts in there. if I’m starving, I’m going to eat that. And that just, I know it ties me over until I can get something to eat. I have tins of tuna in my car, in my bag that I carry around that if I’m absolutely stuck, there’s something to eat. I’m never going to grab a Mars bar or a packet of chips. I just wouldn’t do that.

 

Whereas if I was at a party and I wanted some chips, I’d have some chips. if I’m… Yeah, that’s right. If I go to the cinema with my kids, I’ll get a choc top. But I’m not going to eat that because I’m hungry. I’m going to eat that because I want to have a treat. So then when I’m travelling, it doesn’t matter what restaurant pretty much you put me in except fast food, I will find something really nutritious. I had a… ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (15:08)

There’s your 10%.

 

right thing to

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (15:32)

I’d never really had one before, a ramen bowl last night. They’re fabulous. Yeah, a seafood one and I asked for no noodles. I just thought I don’t need the noodles, why I’ve got late nights, lots of work, little exercise, but give me all the seafood, all the veggies, delicious filling.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (15:50)

There’s

 

the informed decision making rather than just letting the circumstances dictate. Yeah. Yeah. Fit’s so doable.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (15:58)

Fit is, yeah, and it’s one little change. And I think the most important thing when you’re eating out is whatever is in that meal, could even be, you know, salmon and greens, but it’s got a big hollandaise sauce or something. Just ask for on the side.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (16:10)

side or…

 

yep, perfect. So you launched B-Fit Food in 2015. What was the core premise behind the proposition of the brand?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (16:25)

So initially it was actually called bariatric essentials and it was this replacement for meal replacements. wanted to have whole food for people to eat instead of meal replacements but what it became was so much more than that.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (16:40)

Do that as a brand name, Riznick,

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (16:43)

horrible

 

because if you got a box turned up at work and it said bariatric on it, people are like…

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (16:49)

What’s wrong with you?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (16:51)

So then we quickly sort of moved to just BE and then we went, what does that even mean? So then it went to be fit food. Yeah. And I didn’t like health as a word, health food. I just think health food has so much health washing around it. Whereas fit to me means if you are fit, you are probably interested.

 

in your health as well. Fit’s not just one thing. Fit’s not thin, it’s not skinny, it’s fit.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (17:23)

And you’ve got a ⁓ clinician background, not a food manufacturing background. So what was the journey like to actually being somebody who recommended to actually producing?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (17:37)

I never wanted to manufacture the food, but it got to the point where my customers or clients were bringing in so many bags of labels and packets with them at every consult. Can I eat this? Can I eat this? And I’m like, I’ve given you a meal plan. You need to cook it yourself, but I don’t have time. And then,

 

I recognise the issue wasn’t that they didn’t know what to do and it was they physically didn’t have the time and they might once a week or twice a week but they didn’t seven times a week, three times a day. And if you muck that up more than, you know, one day a week, there goes your day. Yeah. So that was the real reason behind it and what we noticed when people were using it before surgery, they were getting so confident with the amount of weight that they were losing that they thought,

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (18:10)

You’ve already said you’re 10%.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (18:24)

Do I need the surgery? Can I do this on my own? And some people went ahead with the surgery and others didn’t. They were empowered that they finally had control of the health and they were so confused as to why nobody had told them this is what you need to eat to lose weight. This is it.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (18:45)

Isn’t that fascinating that, and your word says it all, that they need to be told. They haven’t got the curiosity to go and find that themselves. Hence why businesses like yours need to exist because a lot of people don’t have the curiosity that leads them there. Naturally, it needs to be presented or packaged.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (19:07)

Yeah, and the number of people that would say to me, if you just prepped my food for me or, you know, stood in front of my fridge or locked up the pantry, I’d be able to stick to it. And you hear that enough and you think, I’m just going to drop this food at your door. As long as you promise me you’ll eat nothing else, I can guarantee you 100 % this will work.

 

And that’s what it became for us. Fit’s not something people stay on for life. They use it every season. They use it after Christmas, before a big holiday, before their birthday. Maybe they’ve got their daughter’s wedding or they use it to feel good about themselves. And once they feel good, all of their other choices are in the right direction.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (19:52)

Fit does.

 

Yeah, absolutely is. I say I gave up sugar. As a result of that, you give up and change a whole lot of other things around it. But it’s the impetus that leads to the broader change.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (20:06)

What was the sugar decision around?

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (20:08)

Well, my sugar decision was literally one of these moments. I was launching another business with a couple of friends, had gone into a studio, sat in front of the studio, they did a take and I looked at the monitor and I went, I look like this balloon face. I wasn’t overweight, but sugar had created a sugar bloat.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (20:10)

can’t.

 

Shit.

 

Thanks

 

Okay.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (20:37)

And even if, and you could, and I could see it extreme in some days and not in others depending on how much sugar I’d had. But my sugar consumption was high. Fit was, it was in muffins, it was in chocolate and grazing at my desk late at night. So it was actually, I didn’t like what I saw down the monitor, which then was like, well, just a second, if I can see it, it’s got to be everywhere.

 

And that was the tipping point. So it was vanity in some respects, but the roll-on effect of wellbeing and the feeling after the event of taking it out is just, I mean, I could sit here and talk to you for hours about that.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (21:09)

X

 

That’s interesting. The number one thing that we saw with our customers, so they would come in our physical store when we used to have one, but we don’t now. We’re online in chemists’ warehouse and supermarkets. But they’d come in and say, I going to like it? What’s it to be like, et cetera? And we’d say, look, it’s meat and vegetables, herbs and spices. You’ll get used to the flavor because if you don’t like that, you need to learn because your brain’s been tricked by all the processing you’re eating. And then they’d come back in a week and they’d said,

 

you won’t believe it and I’d be like what do you mean? Well you told me the food was going to be awful and I’m like I didn’t tell you that. I just said you’d need to have a healthy palate to like the food and they’re like well the food’s great but you won’t understand how I feel and they’re no no it’s not the weight loss it’s not the weight loss and I’m like I know but how I feel and they go I’ve never slept so well I’ve got so much energy.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (22:14)

My bones don’t ache, I’ve got no inflammation.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (22:17)

Yeah. And

 

it’s, so it’s got nothing to do with the weight loss.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (22:20)

No, the weight loss is the incidental thing that happens.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (22:24)

Yeah and it really the weight gain is just the end result of not looking after yourself. That’s right. Or it’s not really it’s the environment that you’re in so you may be doing your best that you can in that environment but that environment won’t allow you to be your best health.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (22:43)

Yeah, and aren’t supermarkets, with the exception of your product, full of things that are actually pushing against that.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (22:53)

Ultra-processed foods are literally poison. They really are.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (23:00)

that thought, we’ll come back to that because that’s something I just want to do bit of a deeper dive. Could we talk about Shark Tank for a moment? First of all, whose idea was it to go on the show? Did you pursue it or did they approach you?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (23:09)

Yes.

 

I got into a cash flow debacle and I’d put my life savings into this business and I had a business partner at the time who was earning significantly more than me and he wasn’t working in the business so he had an income.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (23:22)

Don’t we all in business?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (23:38)

And I didn’t because I was working in the business and not taking a salary. And when your savings are gone and you’re working for nothing and you’ve got all the energy to give but no money, you’ve got to find a way to raise some money without, you know, losing all of your equity in the business. I auditioned and I got through to the first round, but then my business partner said it would be career suicide to go ahead with it and that I wasn’t to do it because it would reflect poorly on both of us. So I withdrew.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (24:08)

I’m hearing a lot of self-interest here.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (24:11)

Yeah, and look, if anyone’s watched Shark Tank out there, they can tear you and your business apart. So I understood I just was going to do it anyway. I waited a year and I reapplied and I got through and I said to my business partner, you don’t need to come. And he said, great, I’ve been advised.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (24:14)

Fit might have been good advice.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (24:37)

definitely do not go on TV. And I was like, okay.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (24:42)

You’ve got a face for television, maybe he didn’t.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (24:46)

Well yeah, that was a whole other story. You think you’re walking in there for a one minute pitch and over two hours of interrogation later I’m still being asked questions. There’s no breaks. There’s no can I have a glass of water? Can I go to the toilet? None of that. You just need to hold it all together.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (25:00)

Fit’s in here.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (25:08)

And I ended up bringing my business partner out for proof of life just so I could take a breath out the back for 10 seconds and come in. we got the deal done on air. However, off air was a very different story.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (25:25)

So did you end up with an investor in the end?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (25:28)

I did, but it was nine months of, it was a couple of months of due diligence and it was a flat out no. And then it was nine months of turning up anyway and showing how quickly we were progressing, the lives we were changing and what the future could hold.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (25:46)

You

 

up in a real life pitch outside of Shakti to get the investment.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (25:49)

Yeah, that’s

 

right. And when it finally went to air, it was about a month later that we actually got the investment and that was 11 months after it was filmed. wow. So I thought when we filmed it, walked out with the cheque and we didn’t.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (26:07)

⁓

 

So did it deliver what it promised or it was just a different process?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (26:12)

No, quite different. So apparently in the, with the original Sharks, it was something like a hundred episodes and roughly half got deals on air, but only a handful actually got physical investment. Got it. So, and I understand from the investors point of view, maybe there were people that were making up numbers or things didn’t stack up. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (26:35)

They

 

obviously have to do DD after the event. That makes sense.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (26:39)

Yeah. But it isn’t presented that way.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (26:42)

No, well that doesn’t make for good television. But since then you’ve been Telstra Business of the Year 2018, again in 2022. Does that herald the moments you’re most proud of or are there other moments?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (26:58)

They are definitely the moments I’m most proud of because they were about celebrating the team. A business is a handful of people working towards a common goal. So a business doesn’t exist without people, maybe AI businesses and a few other things, but someone really needs to be the lifeblood. And that was the team. watching them, you we got a limousine that was a crown and it was nice.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (27:24)

and you celebrate it.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (27:26)

Yeah, we really celebrated and the finals are up in Sydney and I took my sister and my mum and my husband and the team and we had an amazing time and they are definitely the highlight.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (27:38)

Fantastic. Well I’m talking with Kate Save, CEO and founder of Be Fit Food and coming up we are going to interrogate whether you really are what you eat.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (27:51)

If you’re

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (27:51)

Loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. Kate, I want to pivot now because I think one of the most important conversations and whilst we’ve talked about the business, what I really want to talk about is people’s relationship now with food. You’ve spent 20 years and have an enormous amount of clinical data as a result of that.

 

and you’ve built a business responding to a need, I might call it a crisis in reality. Let’s name the crisis, how bad is it?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (28:32)

Fit’s insurmountable at the moment. There is no end to it in sight because the solutions that are being presented are really treatment, not prevention. And that’s the scary thing that you’re waiting until people have fallen off the cliff to try and revive their bodies rather than… it’s the best way. Yeah. And that’s scary because…

 

All it takes really is for our healthcare system to do a bit of a flip and actually focus on health, not sick care. it was said, and I think it was actually by one of the previous health ministers, that if the current 5 % of the Australian health budget was doubled to 10%, then there would be a long-term reduction in the overall burden of

 

the sick care costs, that’s all it would take. So it’s not huge shifts in funding that will do this, but that’s not on the agenda at the moment. I wish it was, but if it’s that simple, we’ve got to find a way to plug it in because without a doubt, every single day, I mean, it was just physical health issues. Now it’s mental health issues.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (29:50)

So we truly have a sick care system, not a health care system.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (29:53)

And one of the most interesting studies looked at mental health conditions, so managing major depression and anxiety, either with counselling or with a Mediterranean diet. So with counselling you got 7 % remission in major depression and anxiety. With a Mediterranean diet it was around 32 or 34 % remission, like almost five times the remission rate.

 

There are mental health care plans funding the counselling but there’s no mental health care funding for the food or the dietitians or that sort

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (30:31)

Plenty of funding going to organisations that are producing what we’re going to talk about next, which is ultra-processed And therein lies the conundrum. So we hear about ultra-processed food, but I’m sure the majority of population don’t truly understand what it is and as such don’t understand when or in what food products they’re eating.

 

ultra-processed food. Can you break it down for us? What is it?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (31:04)

I think in the most simplest terms, they are foods that you couldn’t make yourself at home. Try and make a Twisty. Try and make a Sarkatar. Try and make a Coca Cola. are things that you can’t make yourself. That if you pick up that packet, they’re not ingredients you would have in your cupboard.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (31:27)

And there’s the other point, they’re things in packets and boxes largely.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (31:31)

Yes, that are not actually always made of food.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (31:35)

And really sitting in a fridge because they’ve got life span.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (31:40)

scary about it too is it’s not always the things that are on the packet that are causing the harm, it’s the things that are not even on the packet that that food has been processed or the way it’s been processed that is going to damage our health or already damaging our health. Fit’s actually what’s not in the food that is more harmful to us than what is.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (32:02)

in the food. Isn’t that interesting? So do you know from all of the data you’ve collected what percentage of the average diet is ultra processed food?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (32:15)

In Australia it’s believed to be around 40 percent but in America it’s up to 70 percent. Wow. So we follow American trends and with how time poor people are I can see that it will be increasingly

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (32:32)

and we’re being gradually on an upward curve.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (32:34)

Absolutely and if you look at new products in the supermarket they’re not new fruit and vegetables. No. You know we didn’t bring a new livestock cattle range or something like that. We are creating what I would call man-made food and people will say but aren’t these protein bars good for me or these protein shakes or these ⁓ things that are actually man-made food that going back

 

know decades ago, we didn’t, that stuff wasn’t even dreamt of and so people go no this is good for me and they’ll tell me a hundred reasons why these foods are good for them and I said go and look at the populations around the world that are living beyond a hundred without chronic health disease, without diabetes, cancer.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (33:22)

and see what they’re reaching.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (33:24)

They don’t even know these things exist. So that is not the solution to health. So I don’t care what miracle product we’re going to put in something to stimulate natural GLP-1. If it’s not a whole food and you’re actually extracting one ingredient from a whole food and thinking that’s going to fix your health, that’s not right. Our body is so complex and so is obesity as a condition that we need a food matrix, not single

 

Mmm. Things were pulled from all different pill packets and…

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (33:57)

And I’m guessing that also played into why you wanted to be called fit, not health, due to the food brand name. I can see why.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (34:05)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, you need to actually, if you want to be healthy, it’s a healthy mindset. Fit’s not one healthy food or it’s not food restriction or it’s not ⁓ walking every day on its own. If you genuinely want to be fit, then you need to do all of the things that make you healthy. And I think another funny analogy of this is when you read a packet of something and you see that it’s got X amount of carbs, protein, fat,

 

calories you read the label and you go this is good isn’t it because people do that to me every single day. I’m like have you read the ingredients list and they’re like what do you mean I’m just I’m just asking you about the carbs and fat and the calories I’m like that almost doesn’t really exist because those numbers on that packet do not reflect what that does in your body. I’ll give you an example of that if you’ve got a handful of nuts and then you’ve got those same nuts you put them through a machine you turn them into peanut butter

 

They might have the same amount of calories. They’re exactly the same food. They’re both 100 grams of nuts effectively. When you eat the 100 grams of nuts, you will only absorb around 70 to 75 % of the calories. When you eat the peanut butter, you will absorb probably close to 100 % of the calories. Wow. And that’s what I mean about it. Fit’s the things that are not on the label as well as what’s missing that is the problem. Fit’s how we are processing the food.

 

So yes, clean labeling is important, but think about what happened to that food. that’s where the secret to whole food is the structure that is keeping it together. Fit’s, you know, apples and apple juice. People go, well, it can’t be that bad. For me, it’s a hundred percent pure apple. I’m like, that apple juice, I think would have more fructose and sugar than Coca-Cola. Like you could not drink anything worse.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (36:03)

Fit reminds me of a podcast episode I did last year with with Alison Cork out of the UK and I think it really comes down to the point of if you pick up the apple there’s no label on it. If you pick up the bottle of juice it requires a hell of a lot of labeling to to qualify what’s what’s in it so. And it’s what you want to eat. ⁓

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (36:16)

Yes.

 

If you were to make your own

 

juice, it’s never going to look like the one in the container. No, it doesn’t. Why? Why? And especially weeks later, it’s not that colour, it’s not that smell, that taste. The enzymes have killed it because the food was alive and now the food is dead.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (36:43)

Yeah, there you go. The food is dead. That’s a pretty, pretty blunt point. So we get into this conversation of the body positivity movement, says we shouldn’t talk about obesity, yet we’ve got obesity as a disease state and chronic illness. Where do you sit on the tension of should we or shouldn’t we talk about our weight?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (37:07)

I think we should be talking about our composition because you can be healthy at any size if you have, you tell me about your lifestyle and everything you eat and then I will be able to tell you and give me your body composition tests as well. Yes. Fit is not your pull of gravity on earth and that is what people are trying to relate it to.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (37:24)

to my waistline discussion.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (37:35)

I can be healthy at this week. Well, tell me how much sleep did you get? How many steps a day did you strength train and how many vegetables? Did you have your 30 different plant-based foods this week? Did you have your protein at every meal? Did you have some healthy fats? Did you avoid ultra-processed And usually what I’m hearing is most people are, they’re fasting for a long time because they’ve heard fasting is good for them. And some people might want to fast and I’m not…

 

against fasting but if you are fasting for half the day and then having a ultra-processed protein bar and then having an energy drink and then going to the gym and during the day maybe having some coffees to get you through to control your calories and to get thin that is not getting healthy.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (38:24)

That’s I used to do and it so does not work. can so relate to that. So being the Power of Women podcast, in your clinical experience, how different is the discussion you have with women versus the discussion you’re having with men?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (38:43)

Fit is chalk and cheese. Fit really is chalk and cheese because I don’t want to over generalise but most men can be quite black and white when it comes to food and their lifestyle choices and their time commitments and if they say I want to lose 10 kilos and I want to do it ⁓ in six weeks, can you help me?

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (38:56)

You’re not over-generated.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (39:12)

I’ll say yes, they’ll say just write down here exactly what I need to do and they will stick to that. They will, if I tell them sleep between this time and this time, eat exactly this and train exactly this much, they won’t let anything get their way. they will get the result.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (39:26)

characters than us women?

 

Because they’re doers

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (39:32)

their

 

body also reacts in a more predictable way. ⁓ Whereas a female might do exactly the same thing as a male counterpart and we see this with beef-fed food when they’re on a controlled diet. The male and female do exactly the same thing, eat exactly the same thing, the males get better results than the females.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (39:53)

In the end does it even out or?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (39:55)

Fit does because if you have an ⁓ on or off yes or no mindset, that switch is going to flick at some point. So that moderation is kind of the key but having those moments where you reset, so I would say at least once a year, everybody should do a little reset, even if it’s just a week. Reset for a week. We do it with all our tech.

 

We so do, don’t we? like that reset for a week could be as simple as no alcohol, no processed food, more vegetables every meal or something like that. Yeah, and then one of those things that you’ve done you don’t bring back and that’s how you get improvement. And another thing with women that I think, this is men and women, but particularly women, whatever you’re doing now,

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (40:30)

Drink more water.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (40:47)

you will, let’s say you’re running at a particular pace in life, right? Yep. And you’re eating particular food, you’ve got your exercise regime, next year you’ll have to run a little bit faster to actually keep up with that. And the year after that, the decade after that, you need to get faster and faster. But as you’re aging,

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (41:04)

That’s you going the other direction

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (41:06)

harder and harder and this is where the weight gain in women really creeps up. So then you actually need to

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (41:11)

Good analogy, yeah.

 

We’re

 

physically getting slower and what we say, I’m still doing the same things as what I was doing, but in actual fact you’re not because the energy spent is not the same.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (41:26)

Yeah and if you are doing the same things that’s not enough because as we age we’ve got this progressive loss of muscle mass just because of the change in hormones, the change in ⁓ everything, particularly in a female if you’re losing estrogen as well. So we need to find ways to get stronger as we age and that will sort of counteract or offset so we don’t need to keep turning up the pace to just stay where we are.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (41:52)

complex. The human body is complex, but you have pointed it out so clearly and articulately. I can’t end the conversation without some really strong takeaway points, if I could, for the listeners, Kate. So if we got every Australian woman to do three things differently, and I’m not talking about a 12-week program or signing up to anything, but making three

 

changes in their lives today for the betterment of their wellbeing. What would they be?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (42:28)

removing as many ultra processed foods as they can. There may be something like a plant based milk could technically be called ultra processed. So there may be a couple of exceptions to that, but try and remove as many as you can. The second one would be as you age, be more mindful of your carbohydrate intake because we become more carbohydrate intolerant as we age because our muscle mass actually helps to

 

pull the glucose out of the bloodstream. So the third one would be strength-train to try and maintain as much muscle as you can whilst you’re moderating your carbohydrate and being conscious of protein. So that one-to-one carb-to-protein ratio is a really good rule that if you’re having 20 grams of carbs, have 20 grams of protein or more. And if you can have 30 grams of protein with 15 grams of carbs, even better. That’s right.

 

Yeah. And not all carbs are bad because vegetables and fruit are carbs, if it’s ultra-processed we’ve already wiped out those carbs.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (43:33)

And if you want a simple example, it’s what you did with your ramen. You had the ramen, took out the carb content being the noodles, lost nothing in so doing and had an appropriate meal to the time of day and the energy you’d expended.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (43:52)

And I didn’t notice, like anyone else in the rest of the restaurant, if they were served that meal without the noodles, by the time you get through, I had the seafood one, the seafood and veggies, you don’t get much of the soup there and whatever. Most people are not finishing the noodles. And if you have that discipline to stop halfway with the noodles, good on you. But if you have that discipline, you’re probably not.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (44:02)

You struggling to even eat noodles?

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (44:16)

listening right now taking notes going what should I do because they are the people that actually don’t look at things like weight loss medications or weight loss surgery because they have discipline. If you have that discipline this is not you ⁓ but for people that don’t have the discipline that are thinking of trying those things don’t order the noodles with the ramen and then you didn’t have to exert the discipline you just ate the food and

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (44:40)

of you. And therein lies the reality. We can’t put discipline into a tablet or into an injection, but we can put it into the mindset of the choices that we make.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (44:57)

Absolutely.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (44:58)

Brilliant.

 

Kate, thank you so much. could talk about health and wellbeing, the sick care versus health care, the damage we do with the foods that are pushed at us on every TV screen and in supermarket aisles until I’m another 20 years older. There’s just so much in it that’s important, but this is a super, super important episode.

 

I made significant life changes on top of what was already a reasonably healthy lifestyle. 60 or at 59 and the changes have been mind blowing and to the point, and I think I might have shared this with you before, the addiction of the benefits of how much better I feel.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (45:36)

Yes,

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (45:56)

supersedes the feeling of what picking up a chocolate or something as a short term fix would be any day. if you haven’t made the start or you do it together, get together with a group of friends and make a pact and say, let’s try this for a period of time and try and move the needle because we’re living longer but we’re not living better. And it’s within

 

your grasp to take the decisions to change that paradigm.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (46:29)

I’ve got just one little idea for people that are listening that are maybe chocoholic self-declared and they think I can’t live without chocolate I could give up all other sugar you physically can train yourself to go from your milk chocolate to a mildly dark chocolate to a little bit darker and a little bit darker and darker and the flavor that becomes addictive there is that cocoa bitterness which

 

If people go, I hate dark chocolate. Well, did you like red wine growing up? Probably not. Did you like, some people might have liked olives or strong flavours or bitter things.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (47:04)

is also

 

Train yourself through the sweetness to actually getting out of it and enjoy the bitter.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (47:16)

And then you’ll find that you actually can’t go back once you’ve done it and you’ve got all those different grades, know, you’re 40%, 60, 70, 80, 85.

 

DI GILLETT – Power Of Women [HOST] (47:27)

That

 

full-blown milk chocolate to cold turkey. Now not everybody can do that, I appreciate, but that is such a fabulous idea to wean yourself off it. Brilliant, you heard it here. Until next time.

 

KATE SAVE – Be Fit Food [Guest] (47:31)

Yeah.

 

Chapters [Audio]

00:00   Power of Women and the person who shaped Kate’s

03:04   The health crisis that changed everything

04:22   From hospital clinics to founding Be Fit Food

06:17   The weight loss drug debate

08:48   BMI is dead. Here’s what really matters

12:36   Kate’s 90-10 rule and food freedom

15:08   The launch of Be Fit Food

21:09   What clients reported after one week of whole food

23:09   Shark Tank: the real story

26:58   Telstra Business of the Year

28:22   Sick care versus healthcare

30:20   Ultra-processed food — what it is and why it matters

36:03   Body weight, body composition and health at every size

38:43   Men versus women: why the approach differs

40:19   The annual reset

42:20   Three changes every Australian woman can make today

46:24   The dark chocolate pathway off sugar

 

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Find Kate Save at:

Be Fit Food https://befitfood.com.au/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katesavebefitfood/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katesave/

 

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