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From Setback To Comeback

From Setback To Comeback

by | Nov 10, 2025 | Burnout, Female Empowerment, Mindfulness, Podcast For Women

What happens when the drive that makes you great becomes the force that brings you undone?

Life coach, bestselling author and keynote speaker Shannah Kennedy joins me, Di Gillett on the Power Of Women Podcast to explore the thin line between ambition and burnout, and why recovery, identity and self-awareness are now critical skills for high-performing women.

From managing elite athletes to living at full throttle, Shannah’s story is a reminder that setbacks can be the start of your greatest comeback. If you’re willing to do the inner work.

 

In this episode, you’ll hear:

➜ Why “Who are you without your job?” is the most confronting (and necessary) question you can ask.

➜ How to rebuild your identity beyond titles and achievements.

➜ The difference between ambition and overachievement.

➜ Why women in midlife face “the perfect storm” — and how to plan your way through it.

➜ Daily rituals for resilience: mindfulness, breathwork and boundaries.

 

Shannah said:

“Setbacks are inevitable.”

“The line between ambition and breakdown is when you stop listening to your body.”

“Treat yourself like a high-performing human because that’s what you are.”

 

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📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here:

SHANNAH KENNEDY (00:02)

Well the first thing is who are you without your job? And if you can’t answer that, it’s pretty confronting. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – Host (00:09)

We’ve had a setback and setbacks are inevitable. They come in all forms. It could be we’ve been made redundant, our marriage or relationship has fallen over. We’ve had a health episode that’s knocked us sideways that we didn’t see coming or there’s been a loss of somebody in our world.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (00:29)

So you need to do the work on yourself first and when you have a big curve ball, if you’ve gone through a divorce or a redundancy, you have fallen flat on your bottom and you really need to do the work. And so all of a sudden the achievement junkie is so shocked at what just happened that they come to people like me and say, okay, teach me.

 

we go into, you know, what are your values? Let’s build the human now from the ground up so that you can jump back on and go and get another great job or enter another relationship or move forward with your health. We need to reset yourself. So where are the boundaries? What are the goals? What are the habits that are non-negotiable for you now moving forward that really serve your own set of values? And then you need to say yes to the world.

 

The line between ambition and breakdown is when you stop listening to your body. The question is never why me, but more who will I become because of this? A really important question to be asking ourselves in change. Women in midlife are facing the perfect storm. Without a plan, it can break you, and with a plan, it can make you.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (01:57)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome back to the POWER OF WOMEN podcast. What I love about this platform is the opportunity to showcase and celebrate the strength, resilience and achievement of women from all walks of life. And we talk resilience, reinvention and the moments that don’t make the headlines but in fact should.

 

So the conversation today is a really important one and I know this is going to resonate with so many of you listening because today we’re going to explore how to turn setbacks into comebacks. And joining me to discuss this and how we approach it is one of Australia’s most respected life coaches, a bestselling author, and we’ve got a couple of the books on the table with us today, keynote speaker,

 

and mentor to athletes, CEOs and high performers. Shannah Kennedy, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (02:57)

Thank you for having me. It’s beautiful to be here.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (03:00)

Shannah, before we start, I’d like to get into a little bit of your origin story because I think you’ve had your own setback that really framed what your comeback would be. Could we start there? Because you had a high-flying career as a sports manager and somewhere along the line you hit the wall. What happened?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (03:24)

I certainly did. I don’t know if any of the listeners out there have married their job before, but that’s what I did. ⁓ I was in my 20s. I had the most incredible job. was the full Jerry Maguire job. You know, there was athletes. I was working for a wonderful brand. My job was to buy and sell the athletes, to do all the sponsorship deals.

 

Sport is always on the weekend, so great. Every weekend was full, flying around watching sporting events, but never took any time off. So basically, full-time marriage into the job, loved it. Had a lot of friends because I had lot of free passes to places. I had a lot of free things to give away and a lot of money to give away. So my life was really superficial.

 

although I didn’t see that at the time, it was just full excitement. Sort of like if you are an elite athlete, things aren’t quite normal. And anyway, I just did not see the warning signs. I did not want to see the warning signs. So, you know, when your body starts to talk to you and you get the headache, you get the sore bones, you’ve got to force yourself to go to work a little bit.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (04:38)

Explain it away though, that’s the trouble.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (04:41)

Yeah,

 

you do. You create great stories to support yourself and your sabotaging lifestyle. I was also trying to do triathlons myself. I was trying to have relationships and everything was just crumbling around me until one day I just couldn’t get up. I actually could not get through the concrete. And I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue and that was 30 years ago.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (05:08)

Yeah, and we don’t talk about that a lot, but it was something that so many people hit through HSC studies and those sorts of things. So how long did that…

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (05:21)

That

 

was full adrenal burnout. That was a year in bed, a year. A year in bed. Not able to drive, can’t concentrate, can’t turn the lights on, it hurts my eyes. Couldn’t turn the radio on or the TV on because it would hurt my ears. Everything was just fried. Think of everything being fried. Then the huge realisation was, who am I without my job? There was no emails. There was no phone calls.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (05:26)

Yeah

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (05:49)

There was nothing. There was silence. The company were great. They held my job. But it was a horrible realization that I actually hadn’t created a person who went to work. I just created my title. So I was actually lying there thinking of our elite athletes and what happens to them when they go from hero to zero, sometimes overnight, you know, when they do their ACL or they get dropped from the team or.

 

Who is Dusty Martin without Richmond Football Club?

 

DI GILLETT – Host (06:20)

Nobody

 

seems to care about the person, they care about what impact it has on them as a fan.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (06:26)

Exactly. But we need to be a person first who plays football for that team or goes to that job and then gets off that ride and is still a full person. So it was a real gift in the end because I actually in that time really thought about all of the athletes that I had worked with. I saw all of the destruction post sport, which nobody cared about back then because it was the early 2000s.

 

Well-being wasn’t a word, mental health was not a word. It was go hard or go home. So I actually got myself a coach ⁓ to coach me back to unlearn all of my bad habits, to unlearn the I need to use hard work as a badge of honour and relearn a much more sustainable way.

 

of being a high performer without the burnout and having a life as well. So it’s a very exciting time, even though very challenging, incredibly painful chronic fatigue. Your bones are like broken. It feels like you have had the biggest night on the town.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (07:27)

What does it feel like?

 

without the fun.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (07:34)

without any fun. It’s like the worst hangover but also your bones feel like they’ve been punched so it feels bruised so it’s extremely painful. I don’t think people talk about that very much. It’s not just I’m a bit tired, So that ended up in a big depression because I actually didn’t know who I was.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (07:49)

No, it’s more than that.

 

You lost your identity.

 

Ouch.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (07:59)

Yeah, at 30. At 30. That’s early. That’s early to have a crisis like that.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (08:05)

Indeed it

 

  1. And that overachievement junkie pursuit which you would have had, and you would have been surrounded by people with that because they were high performers and killer instincts and strive to win and wins the only thing. And you would have had it in your DNA because you were competitive sporting wise in your own right.

 

So how much of it was about being an overachievement junkie and how often do you see that in the people that you coach now?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (08:42)

Well, I still see it in myself. I think it is. And I think if you are a driven woman and you have that achievement, you know, I’m not happy unless I’m achieving sort of mentality, it doesn’t go away, but you can make a healthier version of it.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (09:00)

That was going to be my question because what makes you great is what brings you undone. So how do you balance that?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (09:06)

There’s

 

a balancing act. So now my achievement is not, did I sell 10,000 books yesterday? Although that’s very nice. It is, what did you do to care for the asset which is yourself? So that she doesn’t burn out, so that she does have balance. Did you set a boundary? Did you do your breath work? Did you do the three M’s to start your day, which is make my bed, move my body, mindfully breathe? Do the pacing stuff.

 

Did I do three breaths every time I wash my hands today? That paces me through the day so I don’t burn.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (09:43)

You’re that, you’re doing that every day. And I did that before we started recording this morning. So I did the three, four, five breathing just to centre.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (09:45)

Yeah,

 

center. So that’s athlete mentality. I mean we watch it all the time. We’ve just watched the grand final. We see people breathing. We see Olympians just preparing themselves with breath. Breath is your first skill to go and really master. So I see it as the Gatorade stations in the marathon of the day. So every time you do that conscious breathing you ⁓ just give yourself a moment to ground yourself.

 

That’s like stopping at the Gatorade station before you carry on for the next 5k’s of the day. I teach a lot of my clients, especially women, how to pace themselves because they are trying to do everything all at the same time.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (10:40)

And particularly midlife women because that sandwich generation piece of you’re managing all ends of the spectrum. Yes. Coming up behind you, those who’ve gone before you.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (10:51)

Yes, and we’re in a crisis at the moment because women have never been in this position before. We’re actually at the top of our careers in our mid-50s. We’ve really got to partner. We’ve developed incredible businesses. Unfortunately, we had kids later, so our kids are still at home. They haven’t gone. And our parents are still with us because they’re living longer. And at the same time, our body is changing.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (11:12)

Incinerate

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (11:19)

It’s a perfect storm and it hasn’t been there in any other generation. Because the generations before, the grandparents didn’t live as long. The kids moved out at 20. Now they’re staying home. ⁓ And by the time you’re in menopause, your career was sort of finished. So we’re in really uncharted waters. Yeah, it’s an interesting But I think it’s exciting.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (11:41)

So with that in mind, are the majority of your female clients midlife women?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (11:49)

No, I have women, men, I have retiring men, retiring women in their 60s, 70s. I have young people in their 20s starting. And everyone wants a plan.

 

They haven’t got a plan. So if you haven’t got a plan, it’s like driving around the roundabout. When you have a plan, it’s like, we know which direction we’re driving on the GPS. So even if it’s a short-term plan, the brain is really comfortable as soon as it knows where it’s going. So we do need a plan, which we plan in pencil, because there’s always change. We need to get comfortable with change. ⁓ And when you do have that plan in pencil, you can enjoy the ride.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (12:31)

That point about pencil is a fascinating one because I still keep a day book as a running sheet of what I’ve got to do. ⁓ And I love writing. I have a creative style of writing that comes from my fashion design background and I physically like writing. And for years I always used a beautiful Lamy pencil because I could

 

change it and it’s only in recent years that I’ve actually moved into writing with a rollable pen and I wonder whether there’s a conscious switch in going from pencil can change it to feeling clear enough that I’m going to put it down in pen and stick with it.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (13:18)

think pen is amazing. I think pencil is for long term. So if we’re thinking about your 10 year older version of yourself, which is your role model, of course, is you, your best friend in 10 years time. You put that age to it, so I’m 55, so I’d be 65. So I would be planning in pencil because I don’t know what curve ball is coming my way. But I’m planning in pencil on, you know, what are the life experiences that I want.

 

What experiences do I want with my husband, with my kids, with my friends, all different ones? I might be planning in how I want to feel. More agile, stronger. Okay, what can I do today? Where do I want to be financially so I know what I need to do today and why I’m not going to go to the sale and buy some more towels because we’ve got enough towels just because I really like them or more stationary because I love stationary. I’m serving her.

 

I am serving her, I’m working for her, that’s my life plan. So I know why I make decisions today is for her because I don’t feel like going for a walk when it’s cold and windy here in Melbourne, but I’ll get up and go for her because she’s saying thank you, keep moving, keep moving or get to yoga, I want you to be agile. So I have this trainer in my brain who is to me

 

DI GILLETT – Host (14:37)

speaks to you in third

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (14:40)

from my life plan because this is how I want to feel and this is what I want to experience and this is what I want to learn.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (14:50)

And I’m thinking what you said, and I think it was after turning 60 that I probably went from pencil to rollable pen. I wonder whether there was something in that.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (15:02)

Well, deep confidence comes when we know which way we’re going and how we want to feel and what we want to experience. That’s confidence. Because you’re living your plan, not somebody else’s plan.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (15:14)

I think I just got analysed on the

 

So you talked about your own setback being a gift and it was a turning point for you. So for those listening who are in the middle of a hiccup or a setback, how can they start to see the hidden opportunities in what feels like a crisis?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (15:45)

It always feels like a crisis. It’s like you just fell off your bike. It’s a crisis. It hurts. It’s horrible. You sit there. Your confidence is completely stripped and you’re sitting in the gutter and it’s a horrible place to be. And the first thing we need to do is breathe. The first thing you do to a child is catch your breath.

 

We’re not going to talk about it yet. We’re going to catch your breath. Ground yourself. Okay, now we’re going to slowly stand up and then we’re going to make a plan and we’re going to jump back on the bike. It’s the same. We need to go through a beautiful process and not just react. We need to ground ourselves first. We need to think about how that felt.

 

What am I learning from this? And the learning might not come till later. Certainly in the middle of chronic fatigue, I did not think it was a gift. But it opened doors for me that I would never have seen. It’s also allowed me, or I have chosen to see it as the gift to live wide awake and with intention. So mindfulness, breath work, all of those soft skills, which I did not possess before I had to bring in, and they became the guide.

 

Like taste the coffee. I’m so happy I have a bed with a doona. You know, I’ve got a car that works. Let’s go down to the little things. And so I actually feel like I’ve had a very grateful life because I’ve focused on the small things.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (17:12)

What would be the difference do you think had you not hit the wall if you’d kept going?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (17:17)

Well, it isn’t until you lose everything.

 

friends, your so-called friends, your identity, your body, that you appreciate small things. So I think if I hadn’t I would still be the A-type overachieving junkie who probably would have blown up her marriage and not felt anything and not been present for her children or maybe not pivoted the right way and just reacted all the way along like a bouncy ball and probably got to midlife ready for a massive crisis.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (17:49)

And that’s probably what we see with a lot of these relationships and characters who blow up. You know, it’s the guy going and getting the sports car. It’s the marriage breaking up at 50 when you think you should just be settling in and starting to plan post-children and enjoy yourself. It’s all of those things coming to that crux.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (18:15)

It’s

 

always the people who haven’t done any work on themselves. So they have been addicted to achievement the whole way through. They have maybe got to partner or had a great career, but everything around them.

 

is incredibly unstable. again, they put all of their eggs into their title and didn’t build the human. And that’s why we need a life plan, which brings in a career plan and a financial plan and a health plan, but it’s actually your life. How do you want it to unfold? Get in the driver’s seat and out of the passenger seat. So a lot of them, I think, have just been maybe just too one-eyed and it’s just life is not like that.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (18:57)

I think that’s right. Well coming up, what to do when setbacks hit and how to manage your comeback. 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.

 

Shannah, before we went to a break, you made a really interesting point. You said we put all of our energy into our title and not into us as a human. How prevalent is that in the marketplace?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (19:34)

enormous because that’s where a lot of women value themselves and their confidence. They don’t value the small things, they only value the title. And when the title is taken away, what’s left? We need to have built the human being who gets on the ride, whether that be at Macquarie Bank or

 

the business that they’ve built, it doesn’t matter what it is, but you need to be able to step off and be the human. It’s just a ride. It’s just a ride in the playground, your job.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (20:06)

So how do you take somebody on that journey to draw the distinction? Because if I’m an achievement junkie and my title of partner has been the pinnacle of my career, I’m there, it defines me. How do you encourage me to think of me as an individual in the bigger picture?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (20:27)

Well, the first thing is who are you without your job? And if you can’t answer that, it’s pretty confronting. So that’s when they say, okay, I’m open to working on it now, because they can’t answer that one question. And it’s a really important question is to know who you are and what’s important to you outside of your job. And what are you doing to feed that consciously, consciously?

 

DI GILLETT – Host (20:52)

So we’ve had a setback and setbacks are inevitable. They come in all forms. It could be we’ve been made redundant, our marriage or relationship has fallen over. We’ve had a health episode that’s knocked us sideways that we didn’t see coming or there’s been a loss of somebody in our world. What’s the non-negotiables in a recovery plan to come back from one of those setbacks?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (21:20)

Well, that’s why I wrote Plan B. Because it was about navigating and embracing change. And after 20 years of coaching people through change, I thought, I’m just going to put it into a simple format for people. For what happens in your brain is we get the curve ball, it comes, it’s lemons, it hurts, it’s falling off your bike, it’s the redundancy, it’s, ⁓ you know, I had a cancer diagnosis, ⁓ my partner passed away, or my…

 

mother passed away or it just can be a range of things you know a business partner blindsided you. The first thing that we have to do is just respond and we can’t respond until we’ve taken a breath. We’ve acknowledged all of our feelings. We’ve created a narrative that works for us to tell other people when other people corner us what happened with your marriage you know.

 

You want to shut that down pretty quickly because that goes into a whole rabbit hole. So you have to have your elevator pitch ready. ⁓ And then you just respond with grace. You just respond with grace. Then you need to recover. So we need to take the time to recover. We need to think about,

 

What are the self-care things that I need to do to just refuel my tank, whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? We need to take a little time, a little gap, instead of just jumping straight back on the bike, a little gap to…

 

DI GILLETT – Host (22:48)

Achievement

 

junkies. So how do you encourage me not to go? I’m just going to get back into it and keep busy.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (22:55)

So you need to do the work on yourself first and when you have a big curveball, if you’ve gone through a divorce or a redundancy, you have fallen flat on your bottom and you really need to do the work. And so all of a sudden the achievement junkie is so shocked at what just happened that they come to people like me and say, okay, teach me.

 

So that’s where we start. And once we’ve done a bit of recovery and we’ve had a bit of time off and we’ve just settled ourselves, we go into, know, what are your values? Let’s build the human now from the ground up so that you can jump back on and go and get another great job or enter another relationship or…

 

move forward with your health, ⁓ we need to reset yourself. So where are the boundaries? What are the goals? What are the habits that are non-negotiable for you now moving forward that really serve your own set of values? And then you need to say yes to the world. Yes, let’s radiate again. Let’s come, jump on the bike. Let’s take off again and have another go. But there’s quite a process to get there. And the people that don’t go through those stages,

 

⁓ always fall again and again and again.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (24:15)

And is that what your personal coach took you through when you hit the wall? And how long do you think the reset took?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (24:19)

Mmm, 100%.

 

I would say at least two years. And then I studied coaching to open my own business to coach athletes into retirement. That was before anyone had heard of a life coach. So think I was one of the first qualified ones in Melbourne 25 years ago. And it started with athletes, then it went into business athletes, I call them, and then life athletes.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (24:51)

And I get that I come from a family of elite athletes and my brother was an elite athlete and he tragically lost his wife Amy Gillett when the Australian cycling team was struck by a car in Germany. Why I tell the story in this setting is Simon was still thinking like an elite athlete in his approach of how he was going to manage his grief. And I can remember him.

 

going hard, keeping busy. He was flying here, he was flying there, he wasn’t acknowledging what had happened. And then out of the blue, he got the hiccups. And I don’t mean an occasional hiccup, I mean 24-7. You can’t eat, you can’t drink, you can’t sleep. The hiccupping was constant. And after about five days, he was broken. Absolutely.

 

broken, his body took over. So it’s, isn’t it interesting as to how if you don’t take the decision, the decision like your chronic fatigue for you.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (25:51)

His body took up.

 

Yeah, your body will take over.

 

Absolutely. And the grief cycle is huge. And it can last forever. Forever. doesn’t go away. So I put that in the book as well. we don’t get taught all of this at school. No. We don’t get taught anything at school except get a great ATAR and go to university. And that’s it. Full stop.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (26:24)

Do you

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (26:28)

Yes, 100%. I think they are bringing wellbeing in now, is great. It’s a small introduction. But a lot of these life skills, if you’re not a reader or I suppose now it’s much easier listening to podcasts, you can learn these skills. That was never around before. Nobody talked about all of this before. Grief was shoved under the carpet. Don’t go near that person. ⁓

 

the book was written in COVID, it came to me at two in the morning, like a Jerry Maguire moment, and I just got up and went, know the exact pathway.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (27:06)

And

 

so Plan B was your first… Number six. But the context.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (27:08)

book. No, that was number six.

 

The

 

context of it. Yeah, exactly.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (27:16)

Brilliant. So for a high performer listening to this podcast, what are some really practical strategies for them to prevent the next crash and to build a more sustainable comeback?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (27:28)

Beautiful. think especially for women who are listening to this, is, you know, we are these incredible human beings. We really are.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (27:41)

If

 

we don’t say so ourselves.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (27:43)

Yeah,

 

and I’m just going to shout that from the rooftop. We are incredible human beings and we need to protect the ascent. We need to put kid gloves around ourselves a little bit and listen to the body because the body will take over otherwise and things happen to us. So we do need to think about filling the oxygen tank before the mask. We do need to think about if I’m going to be a high performer like an athlete, I need to have high performance recovery.

 

And athletes do. They have incredible recovery protocol. We need to as well. And making that your part of your career is what is my recovery. You know, for me, it’s massage, acupuncture, Chinese herbs. It’s constant. It’s been going for 25 years with no burnout. Raising the family, looking after the parents, writing books, traveling the country, speaking on stages and coaching people.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (28:39)

No

 

burner.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (28:42)

None. My recovery is so important to me. So important. I will go and have a 20 minute sleep in the middle of the day.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (28:50)

because you can

 

read when you need to do it and you can respond rather than…

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (28:54)

You know, back-to-back presentations, for example, I will book a boardroom and go and lie down with my legs up the wall for half an hour. Yeah, there you go. treat yourself like a high-performing human because you are one. And high-performing humans and athletes really focus on recovery, just as much as performance. And that could be your rest protocol, your sleep protocol. Your exercise protocol. know, the way you move, the way you hydrate, the way you fuel your body. ⁓

 

treat it like an elite athlete because that’s what you are. You are managing so many different areas in life and everybody needs you.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (29:32)

Yeah, that’s great advice. Thank you. What’s the most significant challenge women are facing today and what do we need to do about it?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (29:41)

I think there’s two. One is we’re in the crisis of ⁓ managing so many different areas of life all at the same time. Menopause, adult children, aging parents, top of our career. It’s enormous. I think it’s a huge load that women have never had before. ⁓ The other one is comparisonitis. I think social media.

 

It actually is destroying a lot of women’s confidence where they don’t feel seen, they don’t feel heard. They’re comparing themselves to someone else’s shopfront, which might not be like that behind the scenes. And it’s really affecting their confidence. And so they are feeling a little invisible maybe because they’re distracted. It’s like if you’re in a running race and you’re running perfectly well and you start looking sideways.

 

What happens to your run? You lose momentum. So every time we’re stuck in comparisonitis we’re losing momentum. And I think it’s a huge problem at the moment, especially while we’re in the whole storm of managing everything else.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (30:51)

That’s such an important word. I’ve heard it said recently and it’s relatively new to my vocab, but that is such an incredibly powerful one.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (31:04)

Comparisonitis

 

DI GILLETT – Host (31:07)

hard to say.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (31:08)

Very hard to say, but think of it as an athlete. If an athlete is comparing themselves to somebody else, they’re always going to feel.

 

If they’re focused on themselves and their 10 year plan, they’re going to be excited, motivated, pumped and looking for new people to bring in to surround themselves with the right people. The minute we’re looking sideways we lose all momentum. So I think social media you have to have a boundary on.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (31:40)

So if I think of that as a term, I think that’s probably a term that derailed me in my 30s and didn’t really stand into my own power until in my 40s because I had a couple of powerful friends around me and I was living vicariously through them, not being true to myself. So I think that is a…

 

The existed long before social media.

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (32:12)

⁓ it did, it did. And that’s why people need a plan. If you have your own vision board up and your own words up on the mirror that really work for you and you are solely committed to enjoying your life, not someone else’s, your life, how can I make today great for myself? What can I be grateful for? What’s my challenge today? Can I breathe today? Did I move my body today? Did I do all the things to serve this asset?

 

Life’s pretty exciting.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (32:43)

Yeah, brilliant. Shannah, thank you I am going to start putting more emphasis on me as the asset rather than me being the last down the line. Good idea. think that’s a must. How can somebody find you if they’re looking to engage yourself?

 

SHANNAH KENNEDY (33:00)

Amazing. Well, that can go to my website, shannahkennedy.com. There’s lots of free resources, free screensavers to keep you on track, free downloadable vision board kits so that you can start your own vision board. Fantastic. All on the website. yes, I do one-on-one coaching. I do workshops for corporates.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (33:13)

and a number of these books that you

 

busy and you’re not burning out. Well done, you. Fantastic. Well, I think that is such ⁓ a truckload of messages that Shannah has delivered today. But I think if we do take the approach of treat ourselves as the asset, rather than the inevitable that can keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, and we’re not breakable, because that would be wrong. are in fact likely to burn out, to

 

to exhaust ourselves, to run ourselves down, and nobody, including ourselves, are going to benefit from that. And I know I have been guilty of it. I’m sure you have been guilty of it. So share this episode with a friend to make sure we treat ourselves as the asset we deserve. Until next time.

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 Shannah at:

Website https://shannahkennedy.com/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannah-kennedy-8a898b1/

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

 

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George Donikian | Love, Reinvention & The Power of Partnership

George Donikian | Love, Reinvention & The Power of Partnership

by | Nov 3, 2025 | Ageism, Female Entrepreneur, Mentor, Podcast For Women

For the first time, I swap chairs with my husband, renowned broadcaster and Executive Producer Of the Power Of Women Podcast, George Donikian, for a rare, deeply personal conversation about love, reinvention, and the power of partnership.

From SBS World News to Network Ten, George has shaped Australian media for more than four decades. A multicultural pioneer, mentor, and trusted voice. But this time, the spotlight turns on our shared journey: the highs, the heartbreaks, and the meaning behind our symbolic spiritual number, 333.

Together, George + I explore what it takes to stay visible, relevant, and connected – in both life and work – through the lens of reinvention, vulnerability and truth in storytelling.

 

You’ll hear us talk about:

➜ The fear of personal identity and finding confidence in front of the camera.

➜ How letting go of perfectionism, of sugar, of control – can transform your identity.

➜ The parallels between media and podcasting: storytelling, listening and truth.

➜ Ageism in broadcasting and why visibility still matters for women and men alike.

➜ The power of partnership – in life, in work and in love.

 

George said:

“Giving it up is an incredibly big deal.”

“Listening is key.”

“The truth is the first casualty in war.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT (00:03)

I just didn’t present in the manner in which I wanted to. But seriously, how common has that been in your experience? You’ve worked with a lot of women in front of the camera. Is that an unusual thing for you to hear?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (00:06)

Isn’t that amazing?

 

No, no, in truth if I reflect on all my team members, my colleagues and on-air partners that ⁓ I’ve shared the screen with, I can remember very early on, again, there was a…

 

desire for them to be happy with what they saw and I understand that. I can remember the first time I saw myself on camera and my then boss Bruce GYngell said to me I’m going to give you something brand new. So I had just started or about to start my television career and I’m presented with a beta camera recorder. He gave it to me so I could get comfortable.

 

with myself on screen and that I could, he knew that I had enough critic in me to will myself to get out of any bad habits.

 

DI GILLETT (01:18)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN Podcast. I love that this is a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievement of women from all walks of life. Today, however, I’m going to be putting myself in the spotlight because we’re going to change this up a little bit. So for the very first time, the executive producer, George Donikian, who is also

 

my husband is joining me in the studio today. And there’s a lot to talk about through a serious lens of reinvention, partnership, and the power of storytelling. And I’ve learnt much of that from the man sitting opposite me on the desk today. And as a partner in life for 20 years to find ourselves working together,

 

for the first time in our careers is really quite something. And I know a lot of people when you say, could you work with your partner, they’d say they couldn’t do it. I have to say this is the best career I have ever had. So without any further ado, George Donikian, welcome to the POWER OF WOMEN podcast.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (02:34)

What a pleasure to finally share a microphone on POWER OF WOMEN I know how important it is and has been for you over the past year. I want to commend you. I think it’s been extraordinary watching your growth because I can remember a time, it wasn’t that long ago, when I asked you to comment on a particular

 

program I was running at the time, I think it was called the Insiders or something, or the Informer. Informer. And there was a particular topic that you had great expertise in. It was about a new idea that you were pursuing with a couple of girlfriends. was called Partenaire. And I remember saying to come on, come and talk to me about it and we’ll shoot the breeze. And no, no, when you offered up one of your girlfriends, who did a fabulous job. you, Kim.

 

DI GILLETT (03:17)

Didn’t go so well did it?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (03:24)

a tremendous job. But you sat back and I kept thinking to myself, why? So why was it then? What was it that curtailed you? hey, I’ve

 

DI GILLETT (03:30)

froze.

 

⁓

 

That’s only three years ago. Yeah, that’s a very good question.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (03:42)

I’ve been watching you and not only am I very proud, but I’ve always worked

 

DI GILLETT (03:50)

Did

 

I mention he’s my number one cheerleader?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (03:53)

I’ve always worried that if I ever unleashed the beast in you, that ferocious work ethic that you have, if I could ever unleash it and let it do something that it was passionate about, you’d be uncontrollable. And here we are.

 

DI GILLETT (04:09)

But it’s an interesting point and I like to just explore that for the purposes of our listeners because it plays into ⁓ what I talk about ⁓ when I write in my newsletter on LinkedIn, Power of Reinvention. So I have been accustomed to talking to rooms of people, being on stage talking business.

 

know my subject matter expertise could talk while I’m underwater. But in all of those settings, I’d have a microphone but not a camera. And I think that that particular day where we went in to do a piece to camera ⁓ for ⁓ what was one of my failed startups with some friends, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I didn’t like the way the camera saw me.

 

Now that was also before I gave up a 58-year addiction with sugar. And I photographed very differently, and I personally in my eyes presented very differently pre-sugar and post-giving up sugar. And so it wasn’t so much that I didn’t have the

 

the language and the knowledge of what I wanted to speak about, I just didn’t present in the manner in which I wanted to.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (05:44)

You didn’t like what you saw. Isn’t that amazing? Because that wasn’t a challenge ⁓ for me in that studio. I kept thinking, you look fabulous. Mind you, you look extraordinary now. Benjamin Button, eat your heart out. You do, but you also were…

 

DI GILLETT (05:46)

I hated what I saw.

 

⁓ I look younger now than I

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (06:09)

very very fashionable woman who knew how to carry herself and always you’ve always known how to style yourself even from was it four five or six years of age and I remember one of those stories your mother said to me oh yes she ruined many a dress I’m so she was telling the truth mm-hmm yeah you always did know what you

 

DI GILLETT (06:29)

Yeah, so ⁓ and I had no issue with what I was wearing on that day but the perfectionist in me did not like what I saw in the monitor of the camera and I didn’t want to go to air that way. It was debilitating.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (06:45)

Had I known that we would have cut sugar.

 

DI GILLETT (06:47)

So giving it up. Well, giving it up is an incredibly big, big deal. am now moving into my third year sugar free, cold turkey, zero processed sugar. And if you haven’t tried it, just give it a nudge for a couple of weeks and see what it feels like. Cause it’s a game changer.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (07:08)

There

 

you go. So you have reinvented yourself.

 

DI GILLETT (07:12)

I have. I have in so many ways, both professionally and ⁓ personally.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (07:20)

So it wasn’t imposter syndrome that could tell your opportunity to talk to the camera. was you simply not liking what you saw. Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.

 

DI GILLETT (07:36)

But seriously, how common has that been in your experience? You’ve worked with a lot of women ⁓ in front of the camera. Is that an unusual thing for you to hear?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (07:51)

No, no, in truth if I reflect on all my team members, my colleagues and on-air partners that I’ve shared the screen with, I can remember very early on, again, there was a desire for them to be happy with what they saw. And I understand that. I can remember the first time I saw myself on camera.

 

and my then boss Bruce Gyngell said to me,

 

I’m going to give you something brand new. It’s called a Betacam recorder. Now, we’re talking a long, long time ago, before they were part of what was available to the public. So I had just started or about to start my television career, and I’m presented with a Betacam recorder, which is the one that basically competed with the VHS recorders of the time. The Betacam was a better bit of technology.

 

⁓ But the marketing drive of the VHS team won the day. But I had one of very first beta camera calls. He gave it to me so I could get comfortable with myself on screen and that I could… He knew that I had enough critic in me to will myself to get out of any bad habits. So he wanted me to watch.

 

DI GILLETT (08:57)

Why did he give it to you?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (09:17)

every night’s news after the event and to decide or be very aware of nuancing. Because what we were doing was showcasing world news in a way that had never been done before. What we offered, that is the original SBS World News team,

 

It was something that shocked the marketplace. know our commercial rivals hated it. They couldn’t cope with it. They didn’t like what we were doing.

 

DI GILLETT (09:48)

But come back to the nuancing if we could: And we see it on air now and we debate about it over the dinner table as we watch news. I mean there is a way of introducing a story that has grief attached to it. There’s a way of introducing a story with brevity. There’s a way of introducing a story that’s joyful. All of those things are different.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (10:14)

Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT (10:15)

And the opportunity to play back and see yourself do that would have been incredibly helpful in understanding just what the nuancing to each of those stories might be.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (10:32)

It was exactly that. It allowed me to understand how to do a particular story. And I remember saying to one of my first producers, language is key. And he kept saying to me, it’s everything.

 

And one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. And we have this challenge now in this modern era of the media where there’s so much disruption, so much misinformation, and every word you use, every phrase, every utterance, you’ve got to be very aware of the complications that can be in the marketplace depending on how you say it. I say to people time and time again, you can say anything.

 

DI GILLETT (11:17)

Let’s dig into what makes a great interview. Is it a voice? Is it curiosity? Is it the ability to listen or is it something else? I’ve been interviewing people on the other side of the desk for 30 years to draw out their story in an executive search setting. Is it the same?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (11:38)

In order to draw out that information that you seek, you’ve got to listen. People will tell you a lot about themselves.

 

DI GILLETT (11:49)

I find people tell me things

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (11:50)

You

 

hide between the marshes, so to speak. So it’s not what they tell you, it’s what they don’t tell you and what you’ve got to find, what you’ve got to seek, what you’ve got to discover. And it’s the way you pitch in and ask the questions that will open, that may open a pathway or a window or a portal that will get to the next chapter of the story. Do you find people… me, listening. Listening is key.

 

DI GILLETT (12:17)

Do you find people tell you things that they didn’t intend to tell you? Because I know that is something whether it’s in the setting of POWER OF WOMEN or historically in a boardroom setting interviewing somebody for a job. They end up disclosing something they didn’t need. What’s in that? How does that happen?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (12:37)

once you make someone comfortable and the discussion is one-on-one. Every interview is one-on-one and every time you’re on air you’re one-on-one.

 

DI GILLETT (12:51)

Explain that because you you’ve coached me in that it

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (12:58)

Well, I’ve known the limits of my ability and I wasn’t ever going to you. She is Max’s daughter. ⁓ Your father was a fabulous man and we miss him every day. But he told me very early on, you’re not going to be able to tell her anything. And I’ve never really wanted to tell you. I’ve wanted to offer up stuff and hope that…

 

DI GILLETT (13:04)

Would she listen?

 

Yes you do.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (13:27)

And that’s not what everyone does, you’d like more people to learn by osmosis. They observe, they watch with great care. And the more care, the more ⁓ effort and work ethic you put into it, you’ll get more out. And I’ve always watched the very best

 

And I’ve had some terrific young men and women pass through my news journey and I’ve watched their careers blossom. And all of them, I’ve tried to give them the same sort of advice. And it just goes to show you how some people take it on board and embrace it. Some, no, no, some take it to another level. Yeah. And then others…

 

DI GILLETT (14:13)

Sometimes.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (14:18)

sort of, yeah, I think I know what I’m doing and their careers are fine.

 

DI GILLETT (14:23)

Did

 

you ever think you were going to coach me?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (14:26)

On our wedding party, I remember I offered up the microphone to you. And you were wise enough to say, I don’t want to be the news anchor here. Because you were. Because I was the news anchor. But you said, I’m very happy as the weather girl. And I thought, weather girl?

 

DI GILLETT (14:46)

That is how I gave our wedding speech. You were still on TV at the time and you took the microphone at our post wedding party to a large room and spoke. And I have always enjoyed the microphone but following on from you was not going to be the highlight of my day. So I thought the only natural way to follow after you was to do the weather.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (15:14)

Yeah, and you did well. I remember saying…

 

DI GILLETT (15:17)

I

 

said there’d be some stormy weather to come. Correct. There has been.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (15:21)

100 % right. 20 years together, we’ve had our challenges, we’ve challenged each other.

 

DI GILLETT (15:29)

few thunderstorms, in climate stormy days, lots of sunshine.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (15:35)

We’ve

 

grown through all of this and I think it’s very normal but I remember also you saying that you took a line out of one of my weather people at the time you said whether it’s just a forecast is never a promise. So here we are 20 years on and we’ve kept the promise to stick together and learn from each other.

 

DI GILLETT (15:57)

Yeah. Well, and that’s probably a good segue to talk about the power of partnership. And I never in my wildest dreams thought that I was going to be working with you or coming to work close within the industry that you’ve been in for the better part of 50 years. the industry has changed enormously.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (16:25)

continues to evolve.

 

DI GILLETT (16:26)

Yeah. But did you ever envisage we would have the ability to actually work together professionally?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (16:36)

I always thought if we could find a topic or a subject that we could immerse ourselves into. I thought what you were doing, the idea of partenaires, which was a great concept and something that you and your two girlfriends at the time… …offline dating. what I loved about it was that you showed me…

 

DI GILLETT (16:55)

our offline dating.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (17:02)

that you could take all the skills that you had garnered in your 30-year career as a headhunter and put it to good use, bringing people together, not just bringing super talent to a corporate organization. And I remember you saying to me, ⁓ one of the great challenges of bringing a CEO

 

And that was always what you were trying to do. You were bringing C-suite and above to different businesses that people would come to you and they’d say, we want a change of culture. And what I loved about what you did was you were forensic. You didn’t, and I remember you were adamant. You weren’t a recruiter.

 

DI GILLETT (17:45)

That’s a word that often is used to describe me, George, actually.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (17:49)

You weren’t a recruiter, nor did you recruit. You were a headhunter. And what that meant was you didn’t go out there and put out an ad and get 55,000 applications and weed or work your way through those. You would go not to find the best talent available. You always were.

 

DI GILLETT (18:07)

No went the reverse.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (18:16)

seeking the best talent. Whether they were in a job or out of the job, you would take them out of that job. That was the task. To entice them to leave where they were because you thought they were a better fit somewhere else. And it was that that allowed you to have the success that you had and also deliver some fabulous partnerships, bringing people out from all over the world to take on positions

 

DI GILLETT (18:42)

For anybody thinking about a career pivot and the power of reinvention, all of the skills that I garnered and acquired and honed over those 30 years are the skills that I draw on every day for the Power of Women and for the POWER OF WOMEN podcast because in the same way as I need to build a curated

 

guest list of who to bring to the studio to interview. I’m the client, but the brief is who do I believe my audience wants to hear from? What are the important messages of the day that would resonate with the POWER OF WOMEN podcast audience? And some of those people are referred to me in the same way as people would put their hand up to say I’m looking for a change of career, so it comes that way.

 

More often than not, my guest list is curated through me doing exactly the same as I would have done with an executive search of come up with a plan and then go to market as to who would be the best person to speak on behalf of that particular issue or topic or narrative. And then I go out and I approach them.

 

and garner their interest in actually being part of the podcast. And only one has said no today, and I haven’t given up yet.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (20:16)

persist persist persist something you’ve done all your life. You have a tremendous

 

DI GILLETT (20:24)

And keeping in mind where husband and wife, he could have used another word and that would have been a deal breaker. So persist is very good George.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (20:31)

Perhaps I could have used another word, but persist suits, because it’s to do with your drive, it’s to do with your work ethic. And the other thing I’ve learnt is you have an extraordinary capacity to learn. You want to teach yourself something, you’ve taught yourself how to edit, you’ve taught yourself how to produce, you’ve taught yourself to use technology that…

 

I’m struggling to master and that shows me a different level of involvement, a different level of… Yeah, curiosity’s entry level. We’ve gone well past that.

 

DI GILLETT (21:05)

curiosity and learning.

 

Well, thank you. Thank you. So how do we give each other space in working together? Why do you think it works?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (21:15)

That’s okay.

 

I think you have always respected my talent and my ability in my career. I’ve always been a champion of watching you deliver. That’s true. Over the years. I don’t think I can remember even when we had a personal tragedy, we lost someone very special to us, our late sister-in-law, Amy.

 

DI GILLETT (21:31)

I do. Enormous.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (21:52)

You were tasked by your brother who was in grief, who was shattered, and he had to go overseas to claim his wife’s body and bring her back. You were tasked with creating a funeral. And I remember you asking yourself, because you were saying it aloud, so where do I start? Not only did you do the funeral,

 

brilliantly, but you also came up with two state memorial services, one in South Australia, because that’s where her parents were and she was a South Australian girl originally, Amy Safe became Amy Gillett, and then we had one also in Ballarat, because that’s where she and Simon were living. So I remember watching you take that challenge from out of nowhere, and it was not something you had ever done before, but

 

You willed yourself, you armed yourself, you found the best people to deliver it. And if you reflect back, no, there was no playbook, no trigger warning as one of your podcasts, and she’s a remarkable woman and what a terrific.

 

DI GILLETT (23:02)

There’s no playbook for that.

 

And I rest

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (23:14)

subject you had and what an enormous career and job she’s been doing for her community. again, ⁓ very, very, very proud, I think from day one watching you cope. And I shouldn’t have been surprised because I remember you did everything for our wedding. Yeah. We couldn’t go to Santorini because Amy had just passed.

 

DI GILLETT (23:37)

Mmm.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (23:44)

We didn’t want to challenge the family anymore. They were grieving. So we found a new way to have a wedding. we did it beautifully. And we had my daughter from a previous marriage, the lovely ⁓ Lauren, come up. And she was one witness. And your brother, Simon, was the other witness. And we had one other couple join us. They were told not to come. But they wouldn’t listen. They sounded like someone else I know.

 

just would not take any advice and they rocked up and you know made themselves part of our wedding party which was lovely.

 

DI GILLETT (24:22)

Probably should mention our connection around one particular number too.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (24:27)

yes, you’re talking about the number three. Well, you should recount that you did all the preparation for the wedding. We got up to the hotel at Port Douglas and just as we were about to check in on the honeymoon, yes, we got married at the Mirage Resort, ⁓ which

 

DI GILLETT (24:47)

on the honeymoon.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (24:57)

felt a bit like a mirage at the time. we went to, was it, Paul Douglas? No, Tom Cove for the honeymoon. And we arrived at our hotel and as we checking in, girl’s gone, you’ve been upgraded. And I looked up and there’s the card and there’s the number. Not just three, was three.

 

DI GILLETT (25:04)

palm cove

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (25:25)

So that became our symbol.

 

DI GILLETT (25:28)

It did and it had been my symbol for years of identifying where my luck was turning when I needed a sign and I think I’ve told the story before where you mentioned I didn’t know quite what to do with the planning of the funeral and I woke up in middle of the night and I had a vision of Amy C. On the end of the bed and it was 3.33 in the morning and 3.33 has become this

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (25:49)

You felt her presence very strongly.

 

DI GILLETT (25:57)

connection of mind that has become a connection between you and I now, where 333 becomes this powerful point and we note it quite often in the day. We quite often send each other a screenshot of our phone where 333 has come up and the quirky part of that is you’re my screensaver and I’m your screensaver as all good partners should be.

 

And this whole 3-3-3 resonance carries through our world.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (26:33)

We’ve been on holiday in Hong Kong and 333 recurring number.

 

DI GILLETT (26:40)

Turns up in the weirdest places. Where it shouldn’t be.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (26:42)

We

 

walked into a gift shop.

 

DI GILLETT (26:47)

and electronics, high tech electronics.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (26:50)

electronic

 

shop and sure enough there was this clock

 

DI GILLETT (26:54)

an old-fashioned clock, high-tech electronic store, every modern whiz-bang in store. I looked on the shelf and there was one of those old-fashioned clocks where the time clicks over on it and it’s like the tin number drops over. And I remember seeing it there and I pointed it out to you and I said to the guy behind the counter, I said,

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (27:07)

And a head…three.

 

DI GILLETT (27:22)

Why is that there? And he said he’d never seen it before. It was there frozen on 333 and it wasn’t 333 time that we’d walked through the store, but there it was frozen in time, a 333. Very.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (27:25)

I’ve never noted it before.

 

Yeah, Eerie.

 

Maybe it was Amy who reminded us to have a good time.

 

DI GILLETT (27:40)

Maybe it was. Maybe it was. Well coming up I want to talk more about the media and the power of storytelling. If you’re loving the POWER OF WOMEN podcasts be sure to jump on to our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (27:59)

that you get a chance to sit together and mark a special occasion. A special occasion is our 20th wedding anniversary

 

DI GILLETT (28:10)

And it’s not that often that you get to do all the talking.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (28:13)

No, normally I leave it to the weather girl.

 

DI GILLETT (28:17)

Do you know, that reminds me George, when we… That’s a fabulous pair of lips on the screen behind us.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (28:24)

Correct. You should explain the weather girl.

 

DI GILLETT (28:27)

Well I should because when we first got married and we did a wedding party I was terrified, which is ironic given I now have a podcast, but I was terrified to take the microphone after you. And the reason was because you were still on air doing the news thing. So I decided the only credible way for me to speak up

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (28:55)

was to become

 

with a girl.

 

DI GILLETT (28:56)

was

 

to become a weather girl. So… ⁓

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (28:59)

But here we are, do know what? 20 years on and I’m now terrified to speak in your presence. Happy anniversary, bye baby.

 

DI GILLETT (29:05)

fantastic.

 

George, coming back out of this break, I want to talk about ageism and visibility. And I’ve spoken about it ad nauseam on the POWER OF WOMEN podcast, and I have written about it in my thought leadership pieces via LinkedIn as well. But I really want to talk about how it plays out in the media. And you’ve got deep, deep knowledge of this. When we think about age and gender,

 

How has that shaped your perspective of women in broadcasting?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (29:45)

Let’s look at gender for a moment and I’ll take you way back to my beginnings at SBS in Sydney at the brand new studios as they were then at Milson’s Point just next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And I can remember walking into the newsroom and it was filled with men. We had one woman and she was the director’s assistant. She was a firecracker. Fantastic talent.

 

and prove that because her career just continued to blossom as she moved through the next ten years and she ended up working for some of the biggest and best organizations on the planet. But when I started in late 1979, 1980 at SBS,

 

I can remember all these men and the one woman. By the time I left SBS, which was late 1988, just before the year would turn around and become 89, I was the lone man in the newsroom. So, had shown the media world that

 

DI GILLETT (30:53)

Is that?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (31:01)

News services didn’t have to be filled with men to ⁓ garner results, to create headlines, nor to achieve ratings. So I watched that transference and for me it was a joy. I never had a challenge, never had a problem with working for a man or a woman. And I never saw one as lesser than the other.

 

DI GILLETT (31:30)

Motion.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (31:31)

That wasn’t the collective view of the media space.

 

DI GILLETT (31:35)

Yeah,

 

so what was happening in the other free-to-air channels? Were there many?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (31:39)

I won’t name the networks because that’s not fair because the world’s changed and so have they. And it wasn’t what they were doing, was what management was doing at the time. But I can remember going to the then number one network who came in and headhunted me. I was headhunted from SBS to come and do a brand new national world news on a commercial channel which really appealed to me because they, for the first time I thought I’ll have

 

all the facilities I need, all the tools, all the ⁓ satellite coverage that I require to do the best possible job. It didn’t turn out to be the case for only one reason. The two principal people were headhunted within a year of my arrival by Murdoch and taken to Britain to help him out of a jam and how’s this for sheer

 

history. Two Australians from one end of the world who were continually told know nothing about football and that is the world game, the round ball code. And Sam Chisholm and David Hill who had done the marvelous work for the Nine Network creating the world of cricket that captured the imagination of the globe and changed the way cricket was covered and reported on forever.

 

Those two men went overseas and created the English Premier League, which has just celebrated 30 plus odd years of success and is the biggest sporting platform in the world. And then David Hill stopped what he was doing in Britain and went to America for Murdoch and helped to create Fox Sport and Fox News. So a couple of Australians who could have stayed with me.

 

chose to take on the world and were marvelous. But for me, it was again stepping into a newsroom filled with men. There were some women and very talented ones, but when you go from a newsroom that was basically only one male and it’s the one on air. Yeah. Because I was the news anchor Monday to Friday and our weekend newsreader at the time was Mary Kostakievis. And when she wasn’t available or on holiday, ⁓

 

Li Lin Chin ⁓ was the one who had come in to add yet another bit of diversity to multicultural television. And then I got the shock of my life, they sacked her. And I was shaken by that because I thought to myself, multicultural television has a role to play. And that was to give diversity an opportunity. And here they were in their infinite wisdom, new management team, thought she wasn’t going to fit.

 

And I thought, this is crazy. And then it coincided with Channel 9 coming to headhunt me. So I accepted the challenge and went to commercial television to prove my worth.

 

And I said to them, you better rethink your choice. And they went back and re-employed her. And the rest is history. So I’m delighted to have had a small part in that role. And then the news team basically at SBS after I left was all female. So there you go, all power.

 

Because their attention to detail, the ability to work together ⁓ is pretty well noted by all good management teams.

 

DI GILLETT (35:22)

Let’s stay on on-air talent as we see it today. Do you think ageism is present in what we see on air for men and for women?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (35:27)

Yes.

 

Present.

 

The end of my career effectively was 2012 when the management team at the time said, we have a decision between you and that person and we’re going to go with that person. I didn’t have a problem with that. They were probably 40 and I was closer to 60 I think.

 

DI GILLETT (35:48)

How old was that person?

 

Yeah. so you think, so as a male, did you feel at that time the decision to take you off air was about age?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (36:09)

It probably was a combination of, I was the newer arrival, they were a longer term member of that team. Albeit younger. were younger. ⁓ And ⁓ they probably didn’t cost as much. So you put all those ingredients together and that package becomes one that you can tinker with. And look, I got looked after to the best of the ability at the time, but it shook me in a way that I hadn’t imagined.

 

And I would liken it to the end of a football career, where you have to reposition yourself and ⁓ look to the next step of your development. And for me, the thing that helped me get through it was one, strength of my wife, who was in a corporate position and carried the can there, but also someone who gave me enough reason to keep looking and saying, just create your own business.

 

go out and do what you do and show others how they can do their job even better. So media training and all of that. And I also got to do over the next 12, 14 years things like I did a documentary ⁓ for SBS on Armenia. Now had I been behind the news desk, that opportunity would never have availed itself.

 

DI GILLETT (37:29)

So ageism is experienced on both sides of the divide in terms of gender. When you look at the screens today, what’s your view on the age of those on air? Do you think ageism is playing out in front of our eyes?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (37:45)

Absolutely, absolutely. We know it personally, we know it through friends and the pressure they’re feeling to continue to perform. Look, it’s always important to perform, right? But working in a newsroom or working in any space where you can feel not the sort of damocles, but you can feel a gentle arm on your shoulder saying, ⁓ it might be time. I don’t think that’s a healthy way to work.

 

We hear about toxic workplaces. The last thing you want, always, is to create a space where not only is it safe, but you walk in the door because you want to walk in the door. And I’m not talking about the people who stay, who work from home, ⁓ which is a whole new development for me. I can’t quite get my head around it, but I understand we’re in an evolving space with so much technology. And I remember

 

only recently saying to someone, we shouldn’t be surprised. The age of production or the industrial age covered about 200 years. This modern technology era that we’re going through, 2004, the iPhone, 2004, the pod,

 

the little pod, iPod. That was the beginning of you being able to carry your own material around.

 

DI GILLETT (39:24)

And now we’re carrying our TVs around.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (39:26)

Well, we’re carrying everything now. I was told by a very smart man, I said to him one day, are we going to have reporters with a camera everywhere they go? And he looked at me and he said, absolutely, that day will come. What he didn’t know was he didn’t look far enough forward, nor had he thought about the arrival of your own personal camera and microphone, high definition one.

 

and one that would be available to everyone. not only have we reached the stage where every journalist has their own camera, right, and props, but we have every person in the world. Now, it’s all well and good to have a professional with a camera because one, they know how to handle a camera. Two, they understand the responsibilities of publishing and the cost that comes with it. ⁓

 

But leaving it to just anyone to have that technology, well, all you unleash… Problems and propaganda. Stories need to be told in a manner, if you’re a professional, you need to tell the story that’s most representative of the facts. Not your story, not the one you think is the story, but the one that best represents what has happened.

 

DI GILLETT (40:31)

telling is

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (40:50)

That is how you get to the nub of a real story. But today, we’re seeing an awful lot of opinion because people don’t have enough time to produce the story.

 

DI GILLETT (41:00)

We’re sharing opinion here. mean that’s what podcasting is. It’s stories.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (41:03)

We’re

 

sharing more than opinion. In this particular case, we’re adding a layer of knowledge and a layer of experience and helping to tell the story. just, I have an idea that, you know, we’re going to do this tomorrow. No, no, no, no, no. This is based on what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, and what we’ve seen illustrated time and time again. And as I say to people, you know, every time they ask me,

 

DI GILLETT (41:14)

Noted noted

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (41:32)

⁓ What’s the biggest challenge in a very heavy news day? And I’d say to stay above the fray, not to allow yourself to be immersed in the emotion. Because as we’re found in war, what’s the first casualty? The truth. And yet, we hear people throw around figures and names as if they know. And I say to them, where did you get those numbers from?

 

DI GILLETT (41:47)

the truth.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (42:02)

⁓ they’re around. No, no, no, no. Where did you get them? And unless you can validate them, those numbers may well be the fanciful numbers you use for your next lottery ticket or your next phone. Yeah, because they’re not any value to anyone else. All they do is muddy the waters, raise the ire of people and stir emotions. And what we get is distortion. What we get is anger.

 

What we get is hate. And what’s it based on again?

 

DI GILLETT (42:36)

My opinion.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (42:38)

and not being able to tell the truth because in war, all those things are clouded for specific reasons. There are operational reasons you don’t tell the truth for the safety of your troops and for the safety of others. But clearly that’s not going to win too many fans and friends on the social media platform.

 

You stick to your guns as a professional and try always not to tell the story that suits you, but to tell the story that’s most representative of the facts. And those facts that you can validate. Can’t validate them? It’s just whimsy.

 

DI GILLETT (43:20)

Speaking of storytelling, and that is what the power of women is all about, how different is the power of storytelling today, do you think, through this lens being podcasting?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (43:37)

Again for me it’s exciting to watch professional women who have a passion to help each other. I’ve noted that the great many of the subjects that you’ve chosen from day one have helped you cover a particular topic of interest.

 

that resonates throughout the marketplace, whatever the subject matter was. You talked about, I can remember very early on in one of the ⁓ very early podcasts, you spoke about the imposter syndrome and how it’s carried itself on not only on one shoulder but on two shoulders to hold people down. And at various times in our lives, we all go through this imposter syndrome.

 

Whether it’s for a millisecond or is it for months or years. And I say to people, the more you work, the more you surround yourself with really good people, believe, have faith. And it’s like a high tide. It will raise the newsroom or it raise the room. It will raise the school or in your brother’s case, it raised his

 

rowing team to a world title. And they were so good at working as one. What did they do? They didn’t just win once. They kept winning. And if I reflect on the man who is your brother, what you cannot mistake.

 

is that when he says he’s going to do something, when he puts his mind to it, he does it, not he’s going to do it, he does it. he, it is DNA and I should have taken that on when I said,

 

DI GILLETT (45:33)

It’s called DNA George.

 

Did you

 

miss that? When you said I do?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (45:41)

I must have been swayed by something else. Maybe it was just your beauty.

 

DI GILLETT (45:47)

No, well I grew up in a household where there was no such thing as a thinly veiled threat.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (45:52)

No, correct. They wanted to create a hazard. You were right in middle of that hazard. But listen, if you think about it,

 

DI GILLETT (45:54)

It was a fact.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (46:08)

It’s held you in good stead, privately and publicly, and we’ll continue to do that because it’s that drive to be the best. It’s that drive to want to be even better than last year. You don’t sit on your laurels. You continue to want to make them better. And I’ve watched your reach to make sure that your technology, the grasp of technology,

 

is better each and every week, let alone each and every year. So you’re advancing this podcast in ways that very few people can.

 

DI GILLETT (46:46)

Thank you. As we come to a close today.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (46:50)

no, you’re curtailing our interview. dear.

 

DI GILLETT (46:53)

I am.

 

Is there something, and this is a bit like one of these game shows of, you know, what’s your partner’s favourite colour and you did it. But a little more depth. So what do you think is one thing people don’t know about me but should and I’m going to do the same for you?

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (47:06)

This’ll be fun.

 

⁓ what is it they don’t know about you? ⁓ I think you have a heart of gold. I’ve discovered that you have a heart You went and had a test and the doctor said, yep, it’s there. I had to sit back and go, wow. So you have a heart of gold.

 

DI GILLETT (47:31)

I have one!

 

⁓

 

Wow, that’s a thought you want to leave them with. Thanks for that George. I’m not sure that you get to stay as my executive producer.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (47:48)

They see you as a strong woman. They’ve also got to understand there’s a golden heart there.

 

DI GILLETT (47:54)

Well, and my reflection is similar. I can remember being absolutely incensed a few years ago. ⁓ You’d been approached to be on a panel for International Women’s Day and there was one particular individual who decided to make a noise about the fact that whether you should or shouldn’t be there. And as it so often is the case, when somebody’s

 

making a noise, it’s typically about them, not about the person whom they’re talking about. And that was in fact the case. And my reason for pointing that out is I think it’s probably underestimated just how many people you have helped along the way on their journey in media. And in particular,

 

women helping them on their journey, but generously giving your time. And I’ve been the recipient of that because whether it’s been through osmosis or the gentle, you know, commentary in the background, because God forbid I didn’t sign up for one of your media training courses, but ⁓ you have been a great mentor, a great cheer squad.

 

and in fact a great partner.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (49:18)

Well, it fills me with a great deal of delight to hear that. But I’ve also got to say that I’ve had my early days where I demanded more from my on-air partners. And I probably rode them harder than I should have. But it was always wanting… Hello?

 

DI GILLETT (49:37)

Hindsight is a good thing.

 

There’s industries built on hindsight,

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (49:41)

You’ve got to understand too, to arrive where I’ve arrived at today, it’s because I’ve learned from all those experiences in the past. So I say to people, don’t be so stuck in your way that there’s an intransigence, that’s a word that Paul Keating made famous.

 

DI GILLETT (50:04)

Not often you can’t say a difficult to say word George at your moniker.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (50:08)

It was case of reaching out and trying to find it again because some file in the back of my office space. But in transigence, your desire to stay rooted to a particular idea and a particular scheme or a particular fashion is not a healthy thing. In an evolving world, I think that’s the most important thing.

 

DI GILLETT (50:36)

And that is probably a great closing message because intransigence and the power of reinvention do not come together. No. So, but what I wanted to really highlight was the power of partnership. To think after 20 years of marriage, you and I can actually work together and we’re talking about some pretty exciting things coming up in the new year that we might be doing together.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (51:04)

Before you go any further, do you remember what we spoke about before we agreed to marry?

 

We both said we were better together than apart. That was the, I think, one of the biggest desires. We wanted to see that if indeed that was true, and we would be better together. I hate the term, but people say power couple. It’s not power couple. It’s about two people, two.

 

DI GILLETT (51:36)

Get thrown around a bit though.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (51:38)

It does get thrown around, but what I want to make very clear, it’s about equality. It’s about two equals pushing one another and helping one another to be better. And you’ve done it for me on a great many occasions. remember someone asked me, and someone said to me the other day, I love your dress sense. I said, well, that’s always nice to hear.

 

DI GILLETT (51:56)

done it for me continually.

 

GEORGE DONIKIAN (52:05)

I’ll pass it on, my stylist does all the heavy lifting. They went, what? I said, yes. Once upon a time, my wife used to style Steve Vizard to George Donikian. Now she has a much simpler task. She dresses George Donikian. So there we are.

 

DI GILLETT (52:17)

to protect the

 

Well, that’s probably a great point to finish on, but the power of partnership, the power of storytelling, the power of reinvention, but the power of partnership is really something else. Until next time.

 

Connect with Di:

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Find Guest Name at:

Website https://www.donikianmedia.com.au/

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The Transformative Power of Wellness, Leadership & Permission to Pause

The Transformative Power of Wellness, Leadership & Permission to Pause

by | Oct 27, 2025 | Burnout, Female Entrepreneur, Female Podcast, Health & Wellbeing

In this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, host Di Gillett speaks with Lyndall Mitchell, the trailblazer who has shaped Australia’s wellness landscape for nearly three decades. From a 14-year-old doing work experience at Camp Eden to founding Aurora Spa and the award-winning ASPAR product line, Lyndall has dedicated her career to helping others refuel and reset.

She shares why wellness is not indulgence but a necessity, the warning signs of burnout, and the simple rituals that sustain leaders, parents, and entrepreneurs alike. This is a conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the power of small, consistent actions.

 

You’ll Hear:

➜ How a teenage work experience led to a life-long calling in wellness

➜ The vision behind Aurora Spa and why urban retreats were groundbreaking in Australia

➜ The four foundations of wellness: sleep, movement, nutrition, and digital detox

➜ Why women struggle to give themselves “permission to pause” without guilt

➜ Practical rituals to build resilience and prevent burnout

➜ Why Lyndall believes wellness should be part of healthcare, not just self-care.

 

Lyndall said:

It’s the small things you do every day that make the greatest difference.”

“Wellness is not something we master. It’s a practice we continually evolve.”

“Permission to pause isn’t a luxury, it’s the fuel for leadership, longevity and life.”

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

Your T📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (00:02)

You’re not alone. A lot of people are doing this and our sleep is what is the dishwasher for our brain. This is where we get our energy, this is where we refuel our tank but we refuel our brain. But we also refuel our self-regulation to be able to make great decisions. And so in the morning if you’ve had a terrible sleep and interrupted sleep, chances are you’re not going to eat well. You probably won’t move your body and you’ll probably spend more money. Now there’s evidence around that.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (00:29)

You’re crazy.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (00:30)

So how do we be the protector of our sleep? Because there’s plenty of sleep robbers out there and our phones can be one of those. I’m Lyndall Mitchell and my values are health, family and economic security which ⁓ really gives me that freedom of choice later in life and my big belief is that it’s the small things in life that you do consistently that make the greatest change.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (00:56)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that celebrates and showcases the strength, resilience and achievement of women from all walks of life. And this is an invitation to join the Power of Women community and follow us on every game changing, unfiltered conversation with these amazing women.

 

Today, I have the privilege to showcase the story of a woman who is the pioneer of the wellness sector in Australia. And she has lived and breathed it for more than three decades. Lyndall Mitchell is the founder of Aurora Spa, Australia’s first award-winning urban spa group. She’s also a coach, a speaker, author, and entrepreneur who has built a wellness ecosystem

 

designed to give her clients something many of us struggle to find, permission to pause. Her story is one of vision and an unwavering devotion to her clients, a devotion that sees her employ and empower nearly 50 women in the organization. And she guides executives through transformational change and inspires companies and individuals across Australia and globally.

 

So today in our conversation, we’re going to explore what it means to refuel your emotional and physical petrol tank. Why ignoring the signs of burnout comes at such a cost and how wellness is a necessity for leadership, life and longevity. Lyndall Mitchell, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (02:41)

Thank you, Di. It’s so wonderful to be here with your community.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (02:45)

Thank

 

you. Lindle, you’ve been immersed in the wellness space for, as I said, almost three decades, or it might even be tipping over three decades, but since you were actually 14. Correct. So can you take us back to that experience of Camp Eden when you work experience from the neighbouring property and what you saw that really resonated and drew you into this industry?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (03:15)

I grew up next door to Australia’s first health retreat and at the age of 14 had the opportunity to do work experience there. And I already knew the staff because mum and I had a little banana stall down on the side of the road where you put money in the jar for the banana. And so we got to know the staff that worked at Australia’s first health retreat being Camp Eden. And so when I was 14, I did go there and do work experience.

 

And it really opened my eyes to these passionate, incredibly healthy humans that loved what they did. And you know, I saw my dad as a farmer, working every day, working hard. And whilst I think he enjoyed what he did, to see people that were this radiant health and passion with the joy they were getting out of working with guests, that’s what really inspired me. So that planted the seed when I was 14.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (04:06)

Yeah.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (04:12)

Went back to living on the farm, had my own pet kangaroo.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (04:15)

Ah, so did I. We could share a story. did. Wow. And a pet emu.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (04:20)

Okay, I need to know about that. Yeah, incredible, you know, ⁓ opportunity growing up. was such a beautiful 140 acres of tropical rain. The hint of like, you know, bananas, avocados, pawpaws were there as well. know, mum and dad lived the wellness lifestyle. And so that seed that was planted, I then wanted to explore that straight after I finished school.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (04:32)

Beautiful

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (04:46)

So I went back when I was 18 and I spent the next five years working at Eden and really working my way up. Started in the lowest paying office position and I just said yes to every opportunity that came my way. Before you know it, I’m program coordinator, which means you have 50 guests coming in and you’re the host of that program. It’s a big deal. Yeah, and you take them through and you know, it’s a really privileged position because you get to see the guests coming in in all sorts of chaos.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (05:06)

EW

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (05:15)

you know, having had burnt the candle at both ends, physically, mentally, emotionally, you know, out of whack. And, you know, no matter what state of chaos they’re in, what I saw was wellness always gave them back that equilibrium. And so I would work 100 hours in one week when you’re there so you see every, you witness every moment.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (05:36)

doesn’t sound like equally room at your end.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (05:38)

Correct. That’s why it’s not forever. And then you have a week off. A week on, week off. Okay. So you’re there for the entire guest experience and for me that solidified my belief in wellness because I just saw that it worked so well and you know 35 years ago it was considered a bit woo woo or a bit left to feel a bit hippie but now there’s enough evidence. Thankfully science has caught up and there’s enough evidence to say there is value in wellness and

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (05:41)

Yeah

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (06:07)

how it can bring you back from that state of chaos and really help you to move forward. the five years I had immersing myself in that incredible environment was just a very steep learning curve for me. You know, certainly challenged my work ethic, you know, in really working that hard. And I guess it then planted the next seed for me was we cocoon our guests in this incredible experience. And, you know, they come out feeling

 

amazing and this sense of equilibrium and reset and clarity. But what next? Where do they go to from here? And if you think back sort of your 30 years ago,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (06:42)

Mmm

 

Well I know where it sits because you just go back and start the chaos journey all over again.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (06:53)

Yeah, and that’s what I witnessed. And so that didn’t sit that comfortably with me because for me wellness is not one week of the year. is a way of life. But what are we missing here? Because guests are leaving in this amazing place but then they’re actually not able to integrate this into their world. And when I looked into it, there just weren’t the resources available for them.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (07:03)

Yeah

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (07:20)

No, it wasn’t there at that point in time and it wasn’t easy. So I really understood that and that planted the next seed for me which was, imagine if I could create an urban retreat where those guests could continue on with what they’ve learned and actually thrive rather than fall off the wagon. And so, yeah, 28 years ago, I moved to Melbourne. 50 % of our guests were Melbourne, 50 % Sydney.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (07:40)

Yeah.

 

Which is that saying something about the stress catheters? ⁓

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (07:55)

and came up with the concept that I would start Aurora Spa and it was going to be that urban destination to support our guests for the long term.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (08:06)

Is

 

anybody else offering that in the marketplace at that point in time?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (08:10)

No spas in Australia. ⁓

 

plenty in Europe and plenty in the US but none in Australia. So what year? 1997.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (08:17)

Where are we, Linda? We’re

 

97 and no spas in Australia. Both are.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (08:22)

So there was rapid growth after that,

 

but yeah, there were no spas at that point in time. it was a concept that really needed some education around it as well. People were like, are you building bathtubs with bubbles? Like what is a spa?

 

I was very clear on the vision I wanted to create. didn’t want to be the destination retreat because I fully believe and still believe that there’s such value in going away once a year to really invest in your health in a retreat where you do have that health environment. You’re immersed in it. And I wanted to be the reset. I wanted to be that little reset that you come back to.

 

I knew that I wanted to create this environment that guests could come to us for 60 minutes or for a whole day. And from that, they can get that refuel to continue on and keep achieving all the things they want to achieve in their life. that was how we commenced. And then in time, did travel. I actually did a trip where I did 60 spa six weeks, which…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (09:26)

Yeah.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (09:37)

It was ⁓ incredible to see the culture of spa in so many different countries. Yes, two. ⁓ in, my most favourite is Thermae Vals in Switzerland. So that’s an iconic spa that really has stood the test of time. Peter Zumther is a well-known architect for creating that masterpiece. And I think it’s just such a

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (09:44)

Any stand-out?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (10:06)

A statement of less is more. It’s profound bathing and that really struck me back then. Came in a little later in my life with the new bath house. That’s really where that seed was planted. And then Mayamo Resort in Arizona and this is where we had beautiful spa ⁓ treatment rooms and areas built into these incredible red cliffs that were the colour of Uluru.

 

And you know the reception, the waiting area had a red earth floor that was blessed by native Indians every year and there was just so much ethos and philosophy and culture behind it and that’s what really stood out. You know it was the ones that were very authentic to what they did and they stayed true to that.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (10:48)

Beautiful.

 

So as a female entrepreneur, you scaled your organisation now and employ what you said 49 women in the organisation?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (11:03)

Yeah, so at Aurora there’s 49. Two. Two me. We have two. They’re always outnumbered in, you know, I’ve worked with females all my career really with a sprinkling.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (11:19)

So is the industry globally female centric in the staffing?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (11:25)

Yes, yes. Generally, you know, if you look at the beauty therapist and massage therapists, they’re predominantly female careers. Generally, if you go into your sort of physio or remedial massage, there’s more males in there as well. And thankfully, there’s more males taking on beauty therapy as well. Yeah. But still not to the numbers that there will be for the females, you know, in taking on those careers. So I think

 

the caregiving role. The females do very well with that.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (11:55)

Ask

 

what the guys do in your organisation. do do massage.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (11:57)

And

 

we have had some bathhouse attendants as well. Okay. You know, where they’re, you know, educating our guests on the journey. But no, they’re in their massage, so deep tissue massage.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (12:10)

So can you take us behind the scenes of what it was like in the early days of being a first, because that’s uncharted territory. ⁓ as you suggested, you hadn’t really travelled at that point in time. So there wasn’t someone to look at in your immediate front yard to reference. How unnerving was that?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (12:36)

I was 23 so I think I was a little naive as well.

 

Maybe, and you know this little sheltered Queenslander that had lived on a farm with a kangaroo was sort of landed in the middle of St Kilda. And St Kilda was eclectic, you know, if we’re talking 97.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (12:59)

Very eclectic and bit grungy. wasn’t gentrified in any way then.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (13:03)

So to open

 

a… I had lots of interesting surprises and things that happened from, you know, people dressed up as fairies in the front yard to people wanting all of… All sorts of massage that we did not… I was like really shocked by, I guess, the wildness of St Kilda at that point in time and I…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (13:15)

Every other day? Yes!

 

Yeah right.

 

I could

 

choose it.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (13:29)

because there was a really beautiful 1870s Italianate mansion and that was, it had such a soul and the space was incredible, opposite Katani Gardens. So it was the perfect location for what I wanted to do because a lot of it was exercise as well. And so that sort of lended itself really well. I guess I have a strength of perseverance when you do a strength test, you know, it always comes out that my perseverance is very high.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (13:39)

Yes

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (13:58)

So I guess my perseverance to the vision I had in mind was really clear for me. I guess I had plenty of people that said this will never work. Melbourne, this will never work in Melbourne. Who are you to come to Melbourne? You don’t know anyone. had someone say to me, how do you think you can start a business?

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (14:18)

And you’re not on a soapbox yelling out, you’re a quiet, softly spoken individual. That could be misconstrued.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (14:26)

Yes, well I think for me it was always that every person that walks in the door needs to have an experience beyond their expectation because then they are our ambassadors and that’s what we work on because 1997 I can tell you there wasn’t much social media around. no. know it was about and still to this day I do think that’s one of our best forms of marketing is it’s

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (14:49)

So it’s

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (14:57)

and Totti Goldsmith did something on ⁓ Foxtel, which was great, and Totti knew me from Camp Eden, so that was really lovely and that helped and then got on the, Totti then went on the Good Morning Show with Bert Newton.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (15:02)

helpful.

 

Because you would have had plenty of famous names through Camp Eden de-stressing.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (15:18)

I mean literally the day she went on Burt Newton, it was like my second day of opening and the phone rang and I was like, I only had one line, you know, picking up the phone, hello? I very much was at the call front with it all and got to sort of live it. But I guess my biggest thing has always been protecting the guest experience and ensuring that experience is.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (15:25)

You

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (15:43)

the best it possibly can be and you still to this day which we’ll get to in Sorrento. We run day retreats and I’m always looking for big impact you know maximum impact in the minimum amount of minutes because when I moved here from Melbourne you know we had the guests for six days so a lot of time to get to know them and to be able to navigate their personal journey when I came to Melbourne I them for 60 minutes.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (16:10)

Yeah, it’s not so revealing.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (16:12)

It needed to be expressed and I needed to really create impactful moments, which is why I started hand mixing products and created a product company. Not because I thought I want to sell products because I made these products, I use them on the guests because they were at a higher intensity and the therapy of them was higher. And then a guest asked if he could buy some and I was like, that’s strange.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (16:32)

We love your espoir.

 

Thank you.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (16:38)

But it did take me putting it into a Ziploc bag and giving it to him to think I should get more professional. I always am led by what the guests need and for me that sort of, the penny dropped that day because we had the destination retreat that you go to annually. We have the monthly top up at the spa but we have the daily self care with the product.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (16:43)

Big

 

That’s

 

the loop. So has more of your inspiration come from feedback from the guests or looking out to the marketplace externally? Yeah.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (17:12)

I’d say it’s a balance ⁓

 

because, you know, I always want to be guided like Aurora Spa and Bathhouse in Sorrento now is very much what the market’s ready for now. And when we were in St Kilda, it was very much about really landing spa in Australia and what the market are ready for and how we educate the market on the benefit of spa and taking it out of pamper and indulgence.

 

and into wellness and thriving health. And so I feel like it’s always listening to the guest as the priority. then I don’t follow trends, but I like to look at evidence as to how we can enhance our guest’s health. And doing that in the shortest amount of time is where I sort of

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (18:00)

So from 97 to 2025, what’s been the growth in the industry?

 

Yeah

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (18:08)

I

 

mean if we look at bath houses in the last year, you know, we’ve gone from really, we had the Hepburn as a bath house and Peninsular Hot Springs, but now we would have well over 200 in the industry.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (18:24)

since COVID. Yes.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (18:26)

Yes, so there’s a lot of bathhouses. know within Spa when I started within eight years there were 600 spas. So it’s a rapid growth and that’s fantastic but the market are ready for it. That’s what they’re saying and that’s really wonderful.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (18:38)

That’s incredible.

 

Experiential is also high on the consumer shopping list.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (18:51)

Yeah,

 

I people are looking for meaningful moments and when they experience the therapy of spa and the therapy of bath house, people walk out of the bath house and they just say, what just happened in there? I feel very different. And we’ve got, you know, 23 year old male who is a successful business owner and his mates go want to go fishing and he brings them into the bath house.

 

He goes, mate, you need to come in and do this. You’ll feel different. And then they come in every single time when they’re in Sorrento and have their bathing experience. And other people say that their house in Sorrento is now a retreat because they bathe before they hop to their house. So that sort of gets them in the mode of switching off their nervous system. Because I guess the thing I’ve seen a lot of over the years is people’s nervous system being quite

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (19:31)

wow. ⁓

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (19:47)

I’d it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (19:51)

So on that point alone, do you think there’s a direct correlation in the growth of the industry and what you’re seeing and the rise of social media? I do. And handheld devices? I do.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (20:04)

Yes.

 

Look, we’ve always had tension in shoulders and in our body from looking at computer screens and our posture and all of those things, but it’s accentuated now. And the stress on the physical, and then we look at the mental and the emotional, and it’s impacting people’s sleep, it’s impacting how they switch off, their mood. Anxiety is a big one that we see a lot of, especially in the younger generation.

 

There’s been a spa and bath houses are needed now more than ever. And we’re really proud that Aurora, we’ve always been technology free and there’s not many places that we go now without our devices. And so if you can remove that device and then just allow the nervous system to be rebuilt and nourished, that’s what we really aim to provide our guests with that experience.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (21:01)

Anybody resist that? Plenty. They don’t want to leave it at door. ⁓

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (21:04)

Yeah, we’ve had people.

 

plants

 

and hiding them in robes. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (21:11)

I

 

can remember that in my hinterland experiences of people getting gifts sent part way through the week, which would be blocks of chocolate ⁓ and another phone. I was with a very devious group, clearly, but that really struck me because they were all the things that they knew they weren’t going to have for a week and they were getting them sent in as a midpoint because they thought they’d need them.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (21:40)

Well, one of my jobs at Eden was to do the pick up from the airport and that was an entertaining job.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (21:47)

You

 

can pick the helpers or can share out the words.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (21:49)

They’re

 

sculling coffee while they’re eating chips and some chocolate just trying to get their…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (21:54)

And they’ll be the ones who would have been throwing up detoxing the next day.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (21:59)

These

 

days was the day that some people didn’t make it out of bed and that was when I decided to myself that I would never drink coffee. Really? And I haven’t ever. Mainly because I saw the extreme of what it could do and sure it was in overdrive but yeah I thought I never want to have that.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (22:09)

re-

 

Isn’t that an interesting imprint?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (22:23)

I’ve seen the effects of that and know, Tuesdays we would have people that couldn’t get out of it, physically could not get out of bed and just vomited all day and you know, very unwell from detoxing just from coffee and you know, other people detox from stress or drugs or cigarettes. But coffee was a big one that stuck with me. So I’m a chai drinker and I’ve just, I love the smell of coffee, but I’m not going to.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (22:48)

Yeah, there you go. So when we hit COVID, you were still operating in St Kilda at that time with Aurora. What happened? I mean, we know everything in service industry came to a grinding halt.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (22:58)

Yes.

 

Yeah, that was a really challenging time for us and a lot of other businesses. We moved our product company closer to our home because we just didn’t know how do we do that? How do we send out orders? know, what do we do? And before COVID, nine months before we shut, I had made the decision we weren’t going to renew our lease in St Kilda. So,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (23:16)

What was Nick?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (23:32)

I, ⁓ had a window of time for our guests to use their vouchers and to come in and see Aurora. And that kept getting cut shorter and shorter every lockdown because we had, ⁓ you know, we had an end, we had a in the sand that, you know, that we had to think incredibly stressful. Yeah. So I, at that point didn’t have the next step organized. really it’s

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (23:49)

I felt stressful for you.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (24:00)

I’m on the radar at that point in time when I was in the throes of the COVID, so of that COVID shutdown. And so it was incredibly stressful. And I came to the point of thinking, if the next door doesn’t open, I’m okay with that. I sort of went, you know, we’ve given 25 years to the local community of being this place of retreat for our guests.

 

And you know, only if the opportunity is right will I continue on. So for me it was the point I sort of, I was peaceful with my decision around that and I was like, okay, we’ll just see how the next little bit unfolds because…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (24:39)

You had a multifaceted business, you had a product offering that could have continued in its own right.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (24:45)

Which has, yeah. Yeah, so I knew that that was always there, but whether the retreat was going to continue on, it needed to be the right fit for us because operating in St Kilda did become more stressful as well, different owners to what it was and not in alignment with wellness, essentially. And so it became harder.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:06)

Which just varies in the front yard. Yeah. Maybe. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense at all.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (25:08)

You

 

And so, yeah, wasn’t until right near the very end of finishing up in St Kilda that the next opportunity presented itself. And I was only going to be taking that if it really worked. And it was the next evolution for Aurora. And bathing was a big part of it because my passion is the culture of European bathing.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:35)

I

 

was going to say, Switzerland was reverberating in the back of your mind.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (25:38)

Yes, it really

 

was because we had a lot of treatment rooms in St Kilda, we had 22 treatment areas which is a big space. In comparison to in Sorrento we have eight rooms, so even bigger with treatment rooms.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:48)

That’s just… It’s enormous.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (25:55)

But I felt that the market was now ready for the next evolution. And for me, know, the European culture of bathing, they get that it’s a therapy. In some of the European countries, it’s still a part of their healthcare system. get rebated by bathing. Imagine. That’s my legacy piece. That’s what we need to work on. For me, if there was a bathing as a bigger offering and we could design that space to really support where our guests are up to now.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (26:13)

work on. We do.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (26:23)

that was appealing. you know, I have always gone to Blair-Gowrie for summers and for switch-off time as well. So I really saw that part of the peninsula as a switch-off and I thought that would be an incredible coastal retreat. you know, the concept of a historic property always appeals to me as well. And so when the opportunity came up to purpose build a facility at the Continental, which was double the size of Aurora, and

 

the full bathing facility it was just like a okay universe I do keep going yeah this is the next chapter

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (26:59)

Wow. Can I come back to that point you said about the legacy piece and that some parts of the world actually subsidise that as part of healthcare? Do you have the opportunity or is it in your purview to create the opportunity to open up a discussion around that with decision makers?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (27:24)

Yes, I think that there’s some great work being done in the Australian spa industry now. For example, next month there’s a spa summit up at Gwingana where all the spa operators from around Australia and New Zealand gather and there’s international speakers and it’s a summit. That’s where these type of discussions are taking place and so it’s absolutely on the

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (27:47)

Walking up the hill when it’s in numbers. Correct.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (27:50)

And we would all love it to be a part of the healthcare system and it’s gaining enough evidence now, you know, for it to be, for that to be a discussion.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (28:01)

I’m

 

there’s plenty of politicians who go through those doors too. And your doors. Yeah.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (28:05)

Exactly. Yes.

 

So no, it’s on the radar.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (28:09)

Yeah, interesting. Well, coming up, let’s explore why wellness on that thread isn’t a luxury and the warning signs that tell us when the tank’s running empty. 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, Lindell, as part of your wellness ecosystem that you’ve created, which is the spa, the wellness retreats, and coaching services, and you’re also a published author, so there’s a few strings to your bow. But I know you often speak about wellness as refuelling the petrol tank. Why do you think so many of us, and particularly women, ignore the warning lights until burnout actually hits us?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (29:01)

Yes, it’s a really good question and it’s one that I see with the guests walking in our doors daily that we tend to get to this point and the analogy I like to give is, know, when you’re driving around in your car and you are in a petrol car, for example, and the light is on that your petrol is low, you know, are you just cruising around in the city thinking, I am so relaxed right now?

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (29:30)

No

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (29:32)

I’m chilling out. Life is good. No, you’re not. You’re going, okay, what’s my plan if it happens at this intersection or if it happens at the next intersection, what am I going to do? How am I going to do that? Where’s my wallet? Have I got the da da da da? You’re going through every scenario in your brain because your petrol tank has gone down so low, you go into overreactive mode, which takes up a lot of thought, process and anxiety as well.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (29:58)

And life’s the same.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (30:00)

Personal energy tank is exactly the same. It’s about when we get down to that red light. That’s when the anxiety kicks in That’s when we’re feeling over reactive. That’s when we’re not making our best decisions That’s when we’re clouded in our thinking we’re feeling quite foggy You know, we’re trying to figure out the plan, but we can’t see it But we’re almost forcing it all because there’s nothing in the tank to bounce off, right? And it’s about how do we keep that tank in the orange and ideally in the green?

 

you know, what does it look like? What do we need to put in to refuel our tank to get it up to the orange and the green? And I always look with my coaching clients, always look at how they eat, sleep, move and switch off. If you think of them as a little circle, you’ve got quadrants there. And we think about all those quadrants and what they’re doing for our wellness. And the one I’d probably start on is sleep.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (30:54)

And is that, there’s a commonality in this, I’m guessing.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (30:57)

Well, these four are your foundations of wellness. you know, the sleep and we talk about technology, you know, how many people are sleeping with their phone next to their bed and then using their phone as their alarm clock. Guilty. Yeah. Guilty. You’re not alone. A lot of people are doing this.

 

Our sleep is what is the dishwasher for our brain. This is where we get our energy. This is where we refuel our tank, but we refuel our brain. But we also refuel our self-regulation to be able to make great decisions. And so in the morning, if you’ve had a terrible sleep and interrupted sleep, chances are you’re not going to eat well. You probably won’t move your body and you’ll probably spend more money. Now there’s evidence around that. So how do we be the protector of our sleep? Because there’s plenty of sleep robbers out there.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (31:42)

You’re

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (31:47)

and our phones can be one of those.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (31:50)

women that you’re working with and coaching and even in the the corporate settings, if you were to ask how many hours sleep is the average person getting, is there an average?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (32:01)

It’s the quality of the sleep that’s in. Some people can be in bed for seven hours or eight hours, but the quality isn’t there. Yeah. So therefore the sleep isn’t great. And I did a corporate talk last week where you have a hundred people raise your hand if you sleep with your phone next to your bed, 90 % of the audience.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (32:03)

Okay, so time is…

 

I’m

 

glad I’m not the exception.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (32:23)

If there’s some small wins and I’m always about the low-hanging fruit, what are we doing, the small things that help to create greater change?

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (32:33)

Is beeping of the phone that’s the issue or is it the radiation or vibration?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (32:41)

We know that we need an hour of no screen time in order to give our brains the time they need to decompress from the day. so, know, the first is getting off the phone an hour before bed minimum. We know the most restorative time for our sleep is between 10pm and 2am. And so that means you’re getting to bed, hopefully around 9am, and you’re off your device at 8pm. And most people find that difficult. So we start at

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (33:07)

Behind the eight ball.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (33:08)

Yeah. Then you’ve got your phone next to you and then what’s your alarm? It’s your phone. Okay, so you pick up your phone is the first thing you’re touching in the morning. Now do you just pick it up, turn your alarm off and put it down? Or do we go, ⁓ I might just check my emails or I might just check social media or I might just check the news. And this is about triggering our stress response.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (33:32)

straight into it.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (33:33)

Straight into it. So think of protecting your nervous system and being kind to yourself and whether that stress response is mild, medium or extreme. It’s having a negative impact on your health. It’s aging you prematurely. So if we just remove that device from the bedroom, then you have, you you’re the protector of your sleep and of that space for the quality and the quantity.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (33:48)

physically stiffens up our body.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (34:03)

That’s your benchmark to start with. So let’s get the foundations right and let’s remove those devices, get an old fashioned alarm clock so that you can just turn it off, the actual alarm without all the other things going on. you know, sleep is a big part of it and then, you know, how you eat, how you move and how you switch off are also very important and the switch off is what I obviously see a lot of in the spa where people do feel guilty and they’re still in that mindset of it’s selfish.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (34:32)

To be there. ⁓

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (34:34)

have

 

time out. And so that’s always an interesting one to talk about as well about our priorities and just the impact of your community, your work community, your family when you are refuelled versus when you’re empty.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (34:53)

That’s an interesting conversation, isn’t it? Because if you’re not refuelled, what you’re providing to family or workplace is clearly going to be compromised, yet you still feel guilty for taking the time out to pause.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (35:09)

Yes, and it eventually catches up through resentment and other emotions that are not great for our body or they cause inflammation in our body or they don’t help our relationships in any way. it always comes around and I dive into that with my coaching clients. But I see it in the spa as well. When we have our day retreats, our guests come at nine in the morning and leave at four in the afternoon. So we get a deeper dive.

 

into their challenges as well. And when someone’s done a day retreat for a whole day, you know, I say, give me one day, I’ll give you three in return. Because that’s what it feels like. We’re running a retreat next month, which is three days. So you give me three days, I’ll give you seven. You know, it’s about how do we intensify your ability to restore your nervous system.

 

Therefore restore equilibrium in your world for whatever that looks like to be achievers great But do it from a full tank where you’re going to be making fantastic decisions and seeing the best opportunities

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (36:15)

So is it frustrating when you see that guest come back at rock bottom next visit? Because I’m sure that happens and I’m sure not all of them take the messages on board and change their ways.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (36:31)

Yes,

 

look, coaching clients are a little different because you’re so invested in the journey and you’ve got, you’re accountable, they’re accountable to one person. So that’s very satisfying. And then the guests that go through the spa, it’s all about what level they’re going to have an impactful experience in. And, you know, I talk about the bath house as you can chit chat all your way, all the way through the bath house and have some hot cold, stop in the sauna, blah, blah, and then come out and go, hey, that was nice.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (37:00)

Mmm.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (37:02)

Or you can go to the bathhouse and you can be really present with yourself and really work on restorative breath for your nervous system and immerse yourself in every experience. And when your mind wanders, pull it back and actually, you know, practice wellness while you’re there and you’ll walk out and go, that was transformational. So, you know, it’s about where you want to land. You know, if you want that experience of feeling very different, it’s available.

 

if we’re open to it. And sometimes the guests might come to the bathhouse and it’s the very first time they’ve been to a bathhouse. So it takes a little moment to get into it and then in time, you know, we’ve had very emotional guests and guests that are very touched by the experience and that’s what we aim to get to.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (37:49)

Are males or females more accepting to do the latter and go in more mindful? ⁓

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (37:56)

⁓ Sometimes the males are dragged along.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:01)

Sounds like shopping!

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (38:04)

In

 

our marketing program, we might call them the reluctant husbands, but they’re generally the easiest ones to convert because they’re completely caught by surprise. And if I look at our regular repeat guests that are coming in weekly, the majority of those are male.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:07)

Yeah

 

that right?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (38:26)

Yeah, because I think that ⁓ males, from what I see, when we talk to males about their program of moving forward, they just commit to it. Whereas I think females find it harder to balance the priorities and the juggle and they do have probably

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:45)

the guilt as opposed to the guys are so the guys come back because it’s okay it’s like golf I can take all Wednesday or I can go to the spa

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (38:54)

of therapy.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:55)

Interesting. And they probably know how to make it tax deductible without you speaking to the government, us girls have probably not latched on to that yet.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (39:04)

Shut up!

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (39:06)

Isn’t that interesting though in the psyche? So in your coaching, are you coaching men and women? Yes. And do you find in that setting that women struggle more to give themselves permission than the men when you’re talking in a coaching session? Yeah.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (39:26)

Yes.

 

Yeah, really simply. coach a lot of female lawyers and that’s a high stress career. ⁓ And yeah, they sometimes find it very challenging, ⁓ predominantly male dominant industry as well. And so they find that really difficult to innately not stop proving themselves.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (39:54)

And they’re probably more inclined to take on board the emotion of the story that they might be representing too, I suspect, through a more empathic view of the world.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (40:03)

Yes.

 

Yeah. So I think it’s a greater challenge for them.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (40:08)

Hmm. Well, I mean, I’m asking a question that was kind of a rhetorical question, but I was hoping it might not be quite so black and white.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (40:19)

Sorry.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (40:21)

How

 

do you demonstrate or educate somebody that the permission to pause is okay?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (40:29)

I think people seek it out or find it when they’re ready and ⁓ from what I’ve seen over the years sometimes it’ll be someone buying a gift voucher for someone. You know as a gift of time out you know they see that someone’s working hard or he’s going through a particularly challenging time and they’ve reached out with a gift of care.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (40:56)

That’s

 

always been how I have landed at a retreat or a spa.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (41:01)

That’s interesting. Okay, so never booking yourself in.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (41:04)

never booked myself in. It’s always been through the route of it being a gift. ⁓ And I haven’t realised that until you have just said that.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (41:13)

That’s fascinating. Not unusual as well. a lot of people can be gifted that because generally the person gifting it to you has had this experience that they think you’re going to benefit from going back to them being our ambassadors. They’re ambassadors for change and they’re ambassadors for seeking you to have nourishment and nurturing.

 

And that’s how some people come to that experience. ⁓ others might try a day retreat with us, they might, a friend has told them about the bath house. But now wellness is very openly discussed, and it’s fantastic that people are going, let’s go bathing rather than go to the pub. Let’s do something that actually we feel better from.

 

rather than something that perhaps we don’t wake up feeling so great the next day. So there’s a lot more emphasis on that as well. I’ve got a daughter that’s 21 and ⁓ doesn’t love nightclubs, but she goes sauna cold plunging in a group environment for social wellness. And she goes to the bay when there’s big breathing cold plunge workout on down there as well. And they do that together. So this next generation, ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (42:24)

Fantastic.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (42:37)

a little wiser on the wellness side of it and they’re very embracing of it because there’s now the evidence behind it to show that it really worked.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (42:46)

And they’ve looked at our work-life balance flaws and said, don’t want to do what you’re doing.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (42:51)

Yes,

 

I think, know, globally things have shifted with COVID and ways of working have changed as well. you know, they’re really leading it in a new direction as well. ⁓ there is definitely that younger generation are very open to going to a spa and a bathhouse as social wellness or wellness for themselves as well. And then, you know, there’s the exhausted new moms and that sort of next generation of trying to balance.

 

the priorities of what they’ve got going on and I’ve been there. I know it’s tricky and that’s perhaps when you’re able to have more micro moments where you can have your 10 minute daily rituals where you don’t have to leave the house but you can still have those moments of pause and I think that’s where our product rituals come in that you can have, know, simply washing your hands with our hand wash.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (43:31)

Yes

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (43:48)

The essential oils are built to calm your nervous system.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (43:52)

Now I know why your body wash makes me feel so wonderful when I start my day with that in the shower. The grapefruit.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (43:58)

Is that the grapefruit? Yeah.

 

So that’s what I use in the morning. Yeah. I use the rosin aloe at night because it’s very calming. in the morning, that’s about kick-starting our nervous system, but also our thoughts and creating that clarity. And every morning when I use my grapefruit body cleanser, you know, I emulsify all over my body and then…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (44:18)

Mmm.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (44:19)

three deep breaths. And then when you feel that, you know, overwhelming pressure coming throughout the day, you can hook yourself back to that feeling and almost smell that aroma because you were so present. So it’s about how do we bring more presence to what we’re already doing because we know the science is showing that by controlling our breath is the best way to reverse our stress response.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (44:42)

I have over subsequent time put in a three, four, five breathing reminder into my diary every morning so that I start at my desk in that manner. And it was interesting, I did an interview with somebody in the biohacking space and I’m still not quite sure where I sit on biohacking as long as it’s… ⁓

 

more along the lines of wellness than extremity. However, talking with somebody the other day and a breathing technique that I was aware of but had never done, which is the breathing in, fully exhausting the intake and then taking a further breath. I fall asleep. I fall asleep very quickly anyway, but I fall asleep immediately after doing three or four of those and I’m gone.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (45:36)

do it when you get into bed at night. Yeah. That’s the, mean, that’s a great way. I like to call it the bookends of your day. So how do you start your day and how do you finish your day? ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (45:43)

Yeah.

 

I’m not failing

 

quite as badly as I thought, Lindor. You’re doing well. You’re doing well. The body wash. You know what?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (45:50)

Yeah!

 

This wellness, the whole wellness thing is a practice. This is not something we master. This is something we continually evolve and we practice to get better at it. no one is an expert on mastering. There’s just different levels of knowledge. And for me, different amounts of people I see and what works and what doesn’t. you know, when I say to my guests go and meditate for 40 minutes, they look at me like, are you, are you for real? I don’t have 40 minutes.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (45:56)

Yeah

 

I can just hear that.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (46:24)

Over the years that building in these practices that are easy and portable are really important because during the day you don’t know what call you’re going to get or really what control you’ve got over your day. You think you’ve got a plan but that could change. How you start the day and how you finish the day generally is under your control. So I have three things in the morning and three things in the evening. So there are more bookends of the day.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (46:47)

So what’s your indulgence?

 

Not indulgences, their life practice.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (46:55)

Yeah, they’re just practices that really help me to just, you know, keep that equilibrium through the day or, you know, come back to it. So, number one, make my bed. Number two, mindful movement. And number three, mindful shower. Okay. my… Yeah. And then at the end of the day, it’s journaling because I want to get out what’s in my head onto paper.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (47:12)

⁓ I’m good. Yeah

 

Yeah, journaling is on my phone. Is that okay? Into my notes section. Better in a book.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (47:26)

Well the phone’s not going to be near your bed anymore, so you need to buy yourself a journal and a pen and put that down. better to write it down. So really getting that out on paper. ⁓ And then I like to do my breathing. And then I use my essential oils. So they’re in the form of a thermal balm, which is on the pressure points of my shoulders and my neck, or using Australian essential oils.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (47:55)

Rose

 

Fragrance

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (47:56)

Yeah, that’s actually camphor and peppermint, so it’s quite intense. And I use it on the back of my neck and down into my shoulders because it’s like a petrochemical-free tiger balm. You know, it’s that minimum type balm. And for me, it just stops my thoughts because it’s so intense.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (48:07)

Yes.

 

RELAX

 

And I know when I jump into bed what I do and I learnt this many, years ago when I developed an autoimmune condition and had alopecia totalis for four years and was totally bald. Another story. However, a practice that I learnt from that time that I have never let go is when I lie in bed at night, I go through from my toes through to my head.

 

and go through the mental let go in each point and you realise how much you’re lying there holding, holding on.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (48:52)

Yeah. You’re

 

doing your own yoga nidra. Yeah. And that’s fantastic. And we hold so much tension in our jaw, for example. And sometimes it’s not until you lie down in bed that you realize, I am so sore in my jaw. actually, I’m squinting my eyes because I’m feeling the pressure. those sorts of practices. for people that…

 

don’t know what a yoga nidri is. There’s plenty of great apps where you can insight time. There’s a free app and yoga nidri is on there as well. But the other thing you can do is just diaphragmatically breathe. Get the breath down to the belly. So when we’re lying in bed, that’s the best time to do it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (49:26)

Yes.

 

Because it’s a straight line, you’re not folded up and seated.

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (49:36)

Yeah, so you’re just wanting to raise the belly and not chest breathe because when we’re under pressure we generally chest breathe and you know it’s that fight-or-flight sort of stress response. So we want to be you know really having these long inhalations but even longer exhalations so your body knows it’s safe and you’re really turning off that stress response and going into that rest and digest which is the perfect place to start for quality sleep.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (49:45)

Y O U F

 

So if I was to say what is the one point you would like the listeners to walk away from this conversation and recall, what would that be, Lindell?

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (50:17)

It’s the small things you do every day that make the greatest difference. I see so many guests who go for the one big thing, I’m going to run a marathon, I’m going to do something enormous and then a month in can’t sustain it. So be kind to yourself in the wellness practices that you bring in and bring in sustainable practices that you think you could be doing in three to six months time. And if you think you can be doing that in three to six months time,

 

well that’s probably a great practice to bring in. But just be kind and gentle to yourself, especially it’s an easy one to bring back to movement because you know so often if someone wants to get fit they start running five kilometres or ten kilometres and then they get an injury. Just walk around the block. It’s actually the habit that you’re building that is more important than the quantity you’re doing at the start. So you’re just building a habit of movement.

 

You’re not trying to run a marathon because actually in time you’ll build up your cardio and you’ll build up your tolerance for exercise But to start with you actually creating the habit and when we can create the habit we have more automation in our body We don’t have to think so much because we get decision fatigue throughout the day. So just the small things be kind and gentle to yourself

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (51:34)

Beautiful. So if somebody wants to find the spa, bathhouse, where

 

LYNDALL MITCHELL – AURORA SPA (51:40)

We are, there’s a website, auroraspar.com.au. Aurora Spa and Bathhouse is located in Sorrento at the Continental Hotel and the Aspar products are online as well.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (51:53)

Beautiful. Yes. Thank you so much for joining me today, Lindle. It’s a reminder. I sit here and acknowledge everything you’re saying and reminding myself how many things I don’t do, but there’s a few things that I do do. So I’m going to challenge the listeners to do exactly the same thing. But the one thing that I am going to do, and I’m going to challenge anybody listening to do, is get an alarm clock and

 

get the phone out of the bedroom. So, job is done. Thank you. So, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please be sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast. on all of the podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and we’ve got our own YouTube channel. Until next time.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcast, hit that subscribe button and be sure that you never miss an episode. Until next time.

 

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 Lyndall at:

Website https://auroraspa.com.au/

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

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/947982/aurora-spa-bathhouse/?hl=en

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✨ Subscribe to the Power Of Women Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

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📩 Sign up for our newsletter where I share raw reflections and thought leadership on the Power Of Reinvention.

 

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

PR is a Power Move – How to Build a Brand That Lasts

PR is a Power Move – How to Build a Brand That Lasts

by | Oct 22, 2025 | Entrepreneur, Female Entrepreneur, Podcast For Women

In this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, Di Gillett sits down with Cassandra Hili, Founder & Director of Curated Agency, to unpack the art and impact of storytelling in branding.

Cassandra’s journey began at just 17 when a personal health blog went viral and set her on a path to becoming a recognised young business leader. Together, Di and Cassandra explore what it really takes to stay visible and authentic in a fast-moving digital landscape and how to build a brand with longevity, not just likes.

💡 You’ll Hear:

➜ Why storytelling is the foundation of every great brand

➜ How vulnerability drives connection and credibility

➜ The truth about earned vs paid media (and how to avoid the scams)

➜ The key to maintaining relevance long after a viral moment

➜ The first PR steps for founders ready to amplify their message

From TikTok to morning television, Cassandra’s approach to PR proves that credibility, not clicks, is the real currency.

 

Cassandra said:

“Tell your own story to connect with others.”
“Be vulnerable enough to share your story.”
“PR is about investing in credibility.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

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 Cassandra Hili at:

Website https://www.curatedagency.com.au/

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

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

 

Want more fearless, unfiltered stories?

✨ Subscribe to the Power Of Women Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

➜ Your ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify keeps these stories alive.

 

📩 Sign up for our newsletter where I share raw reflections and thought leadership on the Power Of Reinvention.

 

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

Exclusive Podcast Interview with Jo Tarnawsky: The Cost of Speaking Out

Exclusive Podcast Interview with Jo Tarnawsky: The Cost of Speaking Out

by | Oct 20, 2025 | Bullying, Change Makers, Female Empowerment, Female Leaders

In this exclusive podcast episode on the Power Of Women Podcast, former diplomat and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Jo Tarnawsky sits down with Di Gillett to share the story that made national headlines ~ and the personal cost of speaking out against workplace toxicity.

From representing Australia across international postings to surviving breast cancer abroad, Jo’s life has been defined by courage, integrity and purpose. But it was her decision to speak out against systemic workplace abuse that would test every one of those qualities.

Through a raw and revealing conversation, Jo explores what happens when the system fails to protect its own, and why finding your people matters more than finding the crowd.

 

You’ll hear:

➜ How Jo’s career in diplomacy prepared her for life’s toughest moments

➜ The story behind her cancer diagnosis and recovery abroad

➜ What really happens when the system lets you down

➜ How to rebuild after workplace trauma

➜ Why speaking out comes with a cost — but silence costs more

➜ What she is doing now.

This is a conversation about courage, purpose and the power of standing up ~ not just for yourself, but for the women who will come after you.

 

Jo said:

Standing up and speaking out comes with a cost – but so does remaining silent.

Finding your people can be a game-changer. You don’t need a large crowd, just the right ones.

Finding your people can be a game-changer. You don’t need a large crowd, just the right ones.

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here👇

JO TARNAWSKY (00:00)

I believe that courage and integrity has never been more important. I think that standing up and speaking out comes with a cost, but so does remaining silent. And I think finding your people can make a world of difference.

 

I was just blindsided. So I think that’s probably something that maybe your audience can imagine that you get these life quakes. I was still trying to make sense of it because it didn’t make sense to me. It’s when I tried to return to the workplace, the prime minister’s chief of staff just told me, well, basically that that was a ridiculous, you know,

 

Of course, I can’t come back, but all my things are still in my office. And how does the Deputy Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff just disappear with no notice midway through a Tuesday? It just didn’t make any sense.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (00:48)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women Podcast.

 

today’s story is a powerful one and one that in fact did make the headlines in 2025. It’s a conversation about the impact of toxic workplaces,

 

what happens when the system lets you down, the cost of speaking out, but most importantly,

 

how not to let those experiences define you or hold you back.

 

Jo Tarnawsky welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (01:21)

Thank you so much, Di. It’s absolutely wonderful to be here. I’m happy to say I’ve caught a number of your podcasts this year. I think it’s an incredible series. So thank you for doing it.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (01:32)

firstly, I want to say thank you for choosing the Power of Women podcast to be the very first time to talk about your story in a bit more detail publicly, because I know it takes courage to do that, and I am really honored that you’ve trusted us with this today. Before we step into the more challenging part of your recent experience, I would love to hear about your career journey, you’ve held

 

senior roles at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And you have represented Australia across international postings. Can you take us through some of the highlights and some of your proudest moments?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (02:13)

Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ I’ve been really lucky to have almost two decades of experience working in diplomacy and worked in some incredible places, met some wonderful people, doing some really interesting things. ⁓ I think one of the things about being a diplomat is that ⁓ on any given day you could be wearing multiple hats. You can be an advisor, an event planner. You could be helping someone with a lost passport or a consular issue.

 

You can be writing some kind of geopolitical analysis, meeting with international dignitaries, a whole range of things. ⁓ And, you know, I think it also comes with some challenges. think there’s a public sort of perception of diplomats at cocktail parties and and traveling around. But I’ve got to say that, you know, this

 

There’s a whole lot of other work that goes often unseen behind the scenes. I know, for example, that ⁓ across my experience, ⁓ in addition to, of course, attending cocktail parties, I’ve been deployed to war zones. ⁓ I’ve been held up at gunpoint more than once. I was nearly kidnapped at one point. And a lot of the work that’s done is invisible. ⁓ But of course, it also gives you extraordinary opportunities.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (03:36)

Are you out to shed any light on some of those more challenging moments? Gunpoint and kidnap? is that confidential?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (03:44)

No, In one instance, I was in Zimbabwe during some of the height of the Mugabe era. And I just happened to be in the wrong place, wrong time. And I was driving to work. I was there on a short term mission during it was around 2007, 2008, when there was a runoff election. Mugabe had not won the first time around. And I was on my way to the embassy and Mugabe’s

 

⁓ entourage happened to go by and I was front of line and you see it coming, there’s warning sort of motorcycles I pulled over to the side of the road but I just happened to be near where his residence was and so he was going to pass in front of me and so some lovely looking chaps with some very large weapons came right up to where I was sitting in the driver’s seat and held a gun basically to my head ⁓ just to make sure I

 

wasn’t going to take one for humanity basically, and stayed where I was. So that was one of them. And then on another ⁓ incident, ⁓ I was acting High Commissioner in Trinidad and Tobago for a couple of months. A lot of people sort of, again, think of the Caribbean as this, as the beaches and the, you know, they have very romantic notions, but actually Trinidad and Tobago, you can see the coast of Venezuela from there. There’s a run of drugs and

 

all sorts of things that go through that channel. There’s actually like a murder count when I was there on the front pages of the paper. And they just had a huge security crackdown for the Summit of Americas where President Obama and a whole range of other leaders had come in. so crime had sort of stopped or been contained for about two months. And then, of course, once all of that left, it spiked.

 

And again, wrong place, wrong time. And I ended up being somewhere that was subject to an armed robbery for where there was about eight gunmen that held me up. Yeah, that was definitely one of the more traumatizing experiences that I had. And yeah, but I’ve got to say that, you know, I’ve worked a defect with a whole range of people that have had their own experiences and

 

have gone out and done the hard yards and so many people have a story either being deployed to war zones or working through tsunamis or being at embassies that have been attacked. And so it really is sometimes frontline service in the national interest.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (06:23)

Is there professional counselling that is offered to diplomats who’ve experienced such things?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (06:30)

There is now. When I first started back in 2002, I remember being one of the first people called in the middle of the night when the first Bali bombings hit. We were sort of called out of bed. And to be honest, I was a graduate. I thought it was a training, a training sort of event. was nothing on the news. This is before social.

 

it was around 2002, 2003, yeah, 2002 maybe. And so we were called in the middle of the night, early one Sunday morning, even by the time we got to headquarters, the religious programming was still on the news. So it all kind of felt a bit surreal. But then when they flicked the phones on, were people already, there were already online families waiting to get through. And it was real.

 

And it even at that early stage took a little while for counselors to sort of be debriefing after every shift, because you’d have quite, you know, you’d have people that may have lost loved ones or just people who had canceled their holidays. And there was no sort of, couldn’t work out who would be the angst, but you would sometimes be the first person that was speaking to. And so a lot of that confusion or anger was directed at you. And.

 

So they’ve got better, whereas I think there’s now there’s multiple full-time counselors that go out to visit embassies, posts, as we call them, on a regular basis ⁓ to check in. They have people on that. And so it’s got, the system has got a lot better ⁓ in ensuring that sort of support is available to staff.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (08:05)

So how many years all up did you spend overseas, Jo?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (08:09)

So on and off my first posting, four year, three year posting was in Papua New Guinea. Then I did a series of jobs over several years where it might be deployed somewhere for just a couple of months. So that included places like Iraq, like Zimbabwe, Kenya. I worked on a kidnapping case there, Ethiopia to help VIP visits come in, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji. There was a whole range of things. And then my very last posting was actually to Italy.

 

where I was acting ambassador for the first six months and then I was deputy ambassador for the next three years. I was also worked out at the World Food Program, the United Nations World Food Program and a couple of the other international organizations. And we were also accredited to Libya, Albania, San Marino, which, you know, also it’s a small embassy And

 

everybody sort of thinks, wow, Italy, how easy it had the highest number of lost and stolen passports there at the time. This is pre-COVID, so it definitely kept us on our toes. But the other thing that happened to me while I was there was I got cancer. so, yes, so it wasn’t all quite ⁓ Prosecco at the Coliseum. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – Host (09:22)

What

 

do you do when that happens in a foreign country? Do you jump a plane and head home or do you start to deal with it in country?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (09:28)

think it depends on the country. Obviously most of the other places, if I had been there when I had been diagnosed, you would want to come home. But I was a long way from home in a country which did have medical procedures. And to be honest with you, I had never needed anything more than a vaccination. ⁓ And something in my gut just told me they can do the surgery here next Wednesday. And even though there was a few questions around how much would it cost and.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (09:36)

put it home.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (09:58)

Could I come home and all those sorts of things. It was really lucky that I trusted my gut because when they got the tumor out, it was breast cancer and they saw how fast it was running and the type I had tripped. Time is everything. They say that if I had got four to six weeks later, I wouldn’t be here now.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (10:10)

Time was everything.

 

There’s a lot to be said for intuition.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (10:19)

Yes, there is. of course I just, you never think it’s going to happen to you until it does. And, you know, then you’ve just got to go with it really. And so I had the full dense dose chemo, lost my hair. ⁓ And I think one of the hardest parts of leaving Italy was not the gelato shops on every corner ⁓ and the historic buildings. It was actually leaving my oncologist. Cause you also developed quite a rapport.

 

obviously with somebody you’ve come to know through one of those experiences. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (10:52)

Did you work through the procedure in the chemo or did you take time out completely to recover?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (10:59)

I worked through most of it, not the early stages. DFAT had originally wanted me to come home. And so I was at pains not to be a problem. And I, you know, so what I did was I took off for surgery. I also didn’t know what was coming in hindsight. So by the time I had surgery, no one would talk to me about chemo.

 

And in fact, defat would only sort of sign off on the surgery if there wasn’t mention of it. And if, you know, it didn’t look like I was going to need sort of long-term help. And so it wasn’t until after they got the tumor results that they realized actually you you need chemo and you need it fast. So it’s, then with that, they can tell you exactly when you’re going to start losing your hair. And so I decided that I would go through that and I, and so it’s around day 14 or so that it starts falling out. And, you know, my daughter was only three.

 

She was going through a Rapunzel phase, you know, focusing on getting her through that. And so I waited for my hair to fall out. But actually because of cutbacks in the overseas service, I had actually absorbed another whole full-time role about six months earlier. I was doing two jobs anyway. So what they did was they ended up bringing somebody in on a short-term mission so that I just did one job and they did the other. But then the other thing too was,

 

I was very careful. Exercise was the thing that was absolutely a game changer for me. And so I just worked strict hours. I stuck to my schedule for that. And I think too what was also helpful was having a routine at home. So I pulled back the hours, I pulled back the scope, I wasn’t silly about it, but having some routine brought some normality. I think it also helped me return to the workforce more fully when my treatment ended because

 

It wasn’t I didn’t have this gigantic mountain to cross. I’d kind of kept a little bit in the loop as to what was happening. I mean, that said, anyone who’s been through treatment knows the fatigue, the physical fatigue knocks you off your feet. Once your hair grows, starts growing back after treatment’s finished, everybody thinks it’s over. And to be honest with you, that was one of the hardest experiences was when treatment ended because there was nothing left to fight and you just had to, you know, you were waiting for it to come back.

 

But I think mentally too, like the cognitive impacts aren’t something that people fully appreciate. So I know the second cocktail that I had really did affect like my spelling. I’d always been a great speller. Suddenly I was missing bits and emails. I wouldn’t say it’s like dementia or Alzheimer’s, but there was a moment, you know, where I would look at my daughter. Where I looked at my daughter and knew she was my daughter. I could not remember her name. And so.

 

I had to so I don’t speak Italian very well at all. And part of that was because at the end of that, what I needed to get back up was actually my mother tongue English. I needed to make sure that my spelling and everything that I so that I could build back my life, because I was the primary breadwinner, could get back on track and just sort of picking your battles and sort of working your way back through the fatigue, through the cognitive impact and a lot.

 

you know, and getting back to a place where eventually, as we know, became chief of staff to the deputy prime minister. And that was a real test. How far have I come? Because you really everything in the kit and that, and, know, and I, did, I loved it. I loved that job. and I had the energy and all of that. And it showed how far I had come. Like it was about five years later.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (14:23)

Absolutely.

 

say how many how many years years later so

 

JO TARNAWSKY (14:43)

So I crossed the magic five year mark about a month into the job. And I still say that a little cautiously because I think anybody who’s gone through it, you don’t have that casual sort of confidence about what the future holds. But certainly the doctors stop worrying about you a little bit from that point and it sort of back into more normal monitoring.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (15:08)

So you have held some incredibly important strategic roles that are kind of the pinnacle of public service and in some pretty tough destinations around the world. You have faced into a personal health battle being breast cancer in a foreign country. You’ve got through that, you’ve worked your way through that, dropping one job and

 

just working through just the one position. But that compared to perhaps more recent experience just highlights what strength of character you must have to do what you’ve done in your career, So my question’s gonna be, If you had carte blanche to speak out and the Power Of Women Podcast is your stage,

 

Given what the last 18 months or so have been, where should we start?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (16:10)

Yeah, that’s a good question. Firstly, I think you’re right. I do think that some of these other experiences helped prepare me. Bad things can happen to us at any time. And I think the only choice we ever have is sort of how we respond. But if I have

 

carte blanche, I think the most useful thing I can do for you and your audience. It’s not necessarily going through the detail blow by blow sort of thing, but it’s also about what we take from these experiences. So. For me, I think I think we there are moments in your life where you wake up in the morning and you have absolutely no idea that your life is about to change and that. No trigger warning.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (16:52)

No trigger warning.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (16:55)

And that something or someone is about to come across your path and by day’s end, your life is different from that moment on. And so for me, that, that day was Tuesday, the 30th of April, 2024. I had just, yeah. And there will be parts that are imprinted. and that’s okay. for me, I, it came through a phone call.

 

And it was a phone call with my boss, who is the deputy prime minister. We had just come back from an extraordinary trip to Ukraine. The entire trip had fallen apart while we were en route. And it was lucky in a way that I had this diplomatic background and I had done VIP visits before and worked in war zones. ⁓ I, you know, had a range of global contacts at high levels that I’d sort of established through my work, because I needed to call on all of them to be able to pull off

 

weaving it all back together. It is the single hardest job I’ve ever done. And so at the end of like, I was really grateful that I, you know, we were able to pull it together. But what had happened as part of that is on the way home, I had decided to raise with him privately that I had been experiencing some issues in the workplace that was starting to have an impact on me. And I, you know, tried to manage this for a while, but I had reached a point where I felt that I needed to draw them to his attention. He had

 

responded to me ⁓ in all of this was in text messages that, ⁓ you know, he really valued me. He was very grateful for my work and we should have a chat. And so that chat happened that day. There was no time set for it. In fact, we played a bit of phone tag that morning, ⁓ which was really normal in my job. ⁓ And this is a man I had known for more than 10 years who had actually asked me specifically to come to Parliament House to do that job for him.

 

And so I had no reason to sort of be too concerned. I had just wanted to raise it with him so that he knew and not to inadvertently feed the dynamics. And the conversation took a look, a really unexpected and devastating turn. And by the end of that phone call, which happened at around 11 o’clock in the morning, went for about 45 minutes.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (19:11)

Was the phone call one-on-one?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (19:13)

It was one-on-one, I just happened, thank goodness I was sort of, mean, thank goodness in some ways I was on my own. but at the same time, I didn’t have a support person or anything. Like I said, it just didn’t seem anything other than routine. And, by the end of that phone call, I had basically been stood down from traveling, ⁓ the next day and to see him, he had wanted me to take leave, saying that.

 

You know, I needed a break and not just a few days, take a few weeks off the books. And I, you know, he had sort of said. I had asked him because it was so the conversation has taken such a weird turn. said, you know, are you asking me to start looking for another job? And he it sounded at the time like he had sort of reluctantly agreed to that. But I found out later he’d had ⁓ he’d actually had a conversation.

 

prior to the phone call. So he knew what he was doing when he went into it. ⁓ And his last parting, chilling words to me were, I know how to manage this, trust me. Because I had asked, yeah. And again, this is a man I’d known for a long time. And so I was shocked. I was in trauma, probably. mean, mostly it was just shock at that point. But I’m also somebody who follows rules and doesn’t like to make a mess.

 

had no reason to trust that I wouldn’t take this time off.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (20:40)

your intuition telling you Jo

 

JO TARNAWSKY (20:42)

I was just blindsided. So I think that’s probably something that maybe your audience can imagine that you get these life quakes. and I hadn’t fully processed it. I was still trying to make sense of it because it didn’t make sense to me. But then I guess to sort of cut a really long story short, it’s sort of the what happens next. It’s when I tried to return to the workplace, the prime minister’s chief of staff just told me, well, basically that that was a ridiculous, you know,

 

Of course, I can’t come back, but all my things are still in my office. And how does the Deputy Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff just disappear with no notice midway through a Tuesday? It just didn’t make any sense.

 

And then at the same time, the Parliamentary Workplace Service was trying, had told me that they were going to cut off my counselling. And this was at a point where I was isolated alone. I was having nightmares.

 

I was in one of the deepest, darkest holes of my life, not knowing what was going on. And so at that point I got a lawyer who, and even then nobody knew what was going on. was all very quiet.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (21:44)

There was no public announcement to the collegiate workforce that you were stepping back.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (21:51)

Nope. then they got that step at least got my counseling reinstated. And then I was allowed back on the work site at Parliament House. But at the 11th hour, new conditions were put on me that were basically that I couldn’t go into my own office without 24 hours of written notice and a special project had been set up for me. So I would then go into work and, know, as and I was trying to find.

 

other jobs so I could exit, but I would often come second and I was putting on a brave face while I was coping with the biggest trauma of my life. And I had no contact ⁓ with my boss or the office. It was just bizarre and it was deeply traumatic and I was trying to cover for myself and for everyone. And so I would literally sit in the car park and cry some mornings. I started having panic attacks because I would have to use everything I had to go and put on a brave face.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (22:46)

and we’ll.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (22:46)

And

 

yeah, and so it was five long months before I went public. had kind of got back into a corner where the special project was ending. I knew I wasn’t able to go back into my own office.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (22:56)

And with special project code for sidelined really.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (23:00)

it wasn’t called a special project. was, mean, there’s been a whole lot of workplace reforms that were ⁓ put out after the Jenkins review and the set the standard. And there has been some improvements around training and things. And I’ve got a bit of a background and a passion for this actually. I was a huge advocate for some of the workplace culture reforms and participated wherever I could. So I went around and as the most senior.

 

female chief of staff on the Hill during the winter break, when I met with all the chiefs about what they wish they had have known, you know, what training would be useful for them, all of that with the view of putting together a guide ⁓ to help future chiefs of staff. So it was kind of a bizarre situation because some of them would obviously share things with me and they had no idea what was going on. I was putting on the most professional face I possibly could. ⁓

 

And so yeah, it was five months before I went public when I’d sort of been backed into a corner because ⁓ this temporary project was ending. ⁓ didn’t seem to be any pathway back to my role. I still didn’t know what I’d done or why this had happened. was just…

 

DI GILLETT – Host (24:14)

Nobody

 

was informing you?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (24:16)

You were blinded. Yeah, just blinded. And ⁓ I’d come second and I just, I didn’t. And the options were, which many people do because of the power that you’re facing on the other side is to walk away quietly. the alternative choice, of course, is to say something. And in my mind, ⁓ they were both terrible choices, terrible options, I should say. But.

 

⁓ Part of it was informed by the fact that I think a large part of the trauma was the covering and the idea of walking away without saying something would mean I would have to keep doing that. My daughter had actually seen the impact at home and she was 11 at the time and she said, know, mum, maybe if you tell someone, maybe someone will help you. And that

 

that really stopped me in my tracks because I mean, I was in such a dark place and I thought, you know what, I owe it to her more than anything to do everything I can before this takes me. And the other thing is we teach kids around, you know, ⁓ if you’ve got a secret, yeah, if you’ve got a secret, there’s no secret too big that you shouldn’t share it, that we stand up to bad behavior and.

 

she’s about to go through high school and, and, you know, I couldn’t very well give her that advice if I wasn’t living it myself. And so, yeah, I thought about it for quite a while. wasn’t a rash decision. I knew it came with consequences. Um, and I’ve got to say, seeing myself on camera is like, I, not a thing. I, I’ve said to a number of people, think other than my fear of snakes.

 

seeing myself on TV. ⁓ And to this day, I have never watched that first press conference. I remember shaking. And I remember saying things. mean, I wrote, obviously I wrote what I said aloud, but I remember foreshadowing a few things which proved to become true, which is that I knew I would be iced out from that point. That’s how the system works and that people would rally around to protect him in their own power. And that’s exactly what happened. And so

 

They doubled down. I was lost out even more and isolated. ⁓ No one from the government ever checked on me. They passed the same lawyers that have been geared up for the Parliamentary Work Post Support Service that have been used by the Deputy Prime Minister to come cover. ⁓ They couldn’t give me guarantees around my confidentiality and privacy with some very personal information like psychologist records and medical records. They just said they’d give me a pseudonym.

 

And I just realized this isn’t going to work. And I wrote an open letter to the prime minister to this day. He’s never even acknowledged receipt. And so I made the very difficult decision to then embark on public and traumatic litigation. Let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (27:29)

So Jo, what is the public interest story here? What should we know?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (27:35)

Well, I think a few things. think I have learned so much over this last year. I’ve learned about the prevalence, sadly, of toxic workplaces. I think in my case, Parliament, it was well documented. The set the standard report, the Jenkins review, as it’s called, ⁓ that had come on the back of some highly publicised cases at Parliament. 1700 people had come through, had spoken up as part of that review.

 

The now Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had stood in parliament in February 22 and made promises to keep women safe. Brittany Higgins and others were in the gallery when he made this speech. And said, you know, and the value of staffers ⁓ and to, you know, everybody needed to walk the talk. ⁓ And I think sadly what I’ve helped show is that while there has been some changes,

 

much of it is window dressing and much of the power imbalance still remains ⁓ and people are still very vulnerable. So there’s that. I think, too, the number of people that have reached out to me, particularly, I mean, I went I went very quiet on social media, shut down most accounts, but I kept LinkedIn open. And the amount of people that have reached out to me with stories of their own workplace ⁓ abuse, it is everywhere. It is a it’s almost like a quiet epidemic. And

 

I don’t really ever need to hear the details of people’s stories. I need, I basically get a sentence or two in and this is someone who speaks the same language and they know it. ⁓ You can recognise it in other people. And my psychologist, have a wonderful psychologist and she had sort of been a little bit worried about me when I went public sort of saying, Jo, you’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on before you help others.

 

⁓ I know you, she said, be careful, but I’ve got to say with a lot of these people, they did not reach out for one-on-one like me trying to fix their problem. Well, they were actually sort of backing it in and saying, we’re watching what you’re, what you’re doing is really important. Keep going. And, ⁓ the vast majority of those were women, not all, the vast majority. Yep.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (29:38)

I just wanted to share it.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (29:56)

And they were just letting me know that they supported me. And that wasn’t just after press conferences either. ⁓ It would be, it trickled right through, all the way through to today. I still get every week a couple of people reaching out because I’ve seen you.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (30:12)

Women, senior executives, or is it mixed?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (30:16)

I would say it’s really mixed in all different industries. There are some senior people and I think sometimes they reach out to me because it’s really difficult to know who to trust. And when I’ve been as public as I have, and I’ve been in the senior roles, I am potentially someone that understands. And particularly if they’ve been subject to what I would call upward bullying, which is a known type, there’s sort of a shame and not a lot of understanding around that. so again,

 

I think that can be, or if they’re in a high profile position, like I’ve had people that have got like post-nominals after their name, like orders of Australia and things get in contact with me. And It’s the shock and the trauma, but what I’ve learned, and here is the real public interest, I think, because I think it’s not just for individuals to know, but for workplaces, that often the targets of workplace abuse are not the people that we think necessarily in the schoolyard where we think of

 

⁓ really visible sorts of things that you can pinpoint or where the targets may be the weakest link, but more than more often than not, they’re high performing ethical people. And I think that’s why the trauma hits so bad because. You know, we spend a third of our lives at work. So they’re not just jobs. They are also part of who we are. And so when workplaces turn toxic.

 

It impacts everything. It impacts our health and confidence. It impacts our families and it impacts the future we see for ourselves. It is, like I said, a lifequake.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (31:52)

Jo, coming up, we’re going to talk more about your courageous story. 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. Jo, you were chief of staff to the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the Minister of Defence before your world

 

literally blew up in front of your eyes? What caused you most grief?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (32:25)

That’s

 

another good question, did I? I think there’s a few things you grieve. So for me, this is the job I’d wanted since I was 12 years old. I’d gone to Parliament House when I was 12 and I’d met then Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I never wanted to be a politician, but I just wanted to be the key person next to the decision maker. And I didn’t know that’s what it was, but all the work I’d done, you

 

going to university at the ANU, which was near Parliament House, working at Parliament House as a university student. This was the job, like at the senior level, this is everything I’d worked for. So this was the dream. I loved my job. So there was a grief, I guess, in having it end so abruptly and everything. And so there’s a grief that I think you have to let go of the job. particularly when it’s

 

ended in such traumatic circumstances. But I think too, there’s a broader piece there around you, there’s a grief that comes because you feel so abandoned by the people and the workplace or the institution that you’ve given so much to. And I think that’s common for a lot of people who have gone through a toxic workplace experience.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (33:46)

Do you feel that your colleagues had abandoned you through their own choices or do you feel they had been told to keep their distance?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (33:56)

Both. think sometimes you don’t need to be told because you know the way it works. ⁓ But I do understand people were also told. So I think both. But I think this comes back to what something that I said and part of those fast things at the beginning, There is a real cost to speaking up ⁓ on these things, but there is also a cost to being silent So.

 

if you take it even broader, when I sort of look at what’s happening in the world right now, There is a cost to being silent because you vacate the space for others. There is a cost to not, you know, to just staying out of the way that it’s somebody else’s problem ⁓ because that can have a human impact as well. So for me, as I’ve explained, there was also a cost of covering and not speaking the truth.

 

⁓ I felt that that added to my trauma. and I think I was right. ⁓ I think when I looked at my options about walking away or standing up and saying something, I knew by getting up and saying something and shaking like a leaf and facing those cameras, it would get harder, but I could at least see an option where it might get better. And I did feel immediately like a weight had lifted because I told the truth. And I have met people who have left.

 

places that have been bad for them and who didn’t say anything and sometimes they’re carrying the trauma years down the track. It’s still eating them. Whereas I’ve got to say that my recovery has, I think, been helped by the fact that I felt that I had done everything I could to raise the flag ⁓ and I’ve been true to my values.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (35:42)

Did your daughter have something to say when you stepped forward and spoke out?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (35:47)

Yeah,

 

I think she felt very proud that she had ⁓ helped me fix it in her view.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (35:56)

How wonderful.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (35:59)

She’s such a great kid, you know, I’m so lucky. And when I look at the future, we need strong, courageous women like her. I think there’s a, get this wrong, but there’s this wonderful little internet thing I’ve seen on the internet where it’s strong women. May we be them, may we raise them. And so hopefully I’m doing that with her, but she definitely, she’s got very high EQ, she’s very kind.

 

She’s super smart with real world stuff for a kid of her age. I mean, she’s had that all her life, to be honest, when we go back to when I had cancer, and even as a three year old, we had tried to explain it to her in age appropriate ways. she’d obviously, kids pick up on things though. she, I woke up one morning and she was right in my face. It was, I think just before my surgery.

 

And she’d obviously been thinking about it and she’d come up to me and she’s right there and she, and she just slant in very gently. And she said, don’t worry, mommy, if you lose your hair, I’ll find it for you. Which is just, I’ll never forget that. And when my hair did start falling out and you shave it to, mean, I didn’t quite understand this till it happened to me, but it’s, it’s the weight and it sort of irritates the scalp. if you can.

 

Let go of that shaving helps. And she went round with a little dust band and sort of picked it all up. So she likes, I think, feeling that she helped fix it. And it was the same with this. She was very proud of me for getting up there and saying something, but she also felt that she had helped. And so I think now as she sort of heads into high school, I hope that I have provided that role modeling for her and.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (37:27)

data.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (37:48)

We do have a very open relationship. Who knows what the robust teenage years hold for us, but hopefully she knows that there’s no secret too big that she can’t share with me.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (37:59)

her empathy score will remain as high. that’s… Jo, you said to me you don’t need a large crowd, you just need the right people. What do you mean by that?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (38:02)

I hope so. I hope so.

 

So I think finding the right people can be a game changer. So for me, it is hard. It is part of the grief that you have to let go of some people. ⁓ But again, from when I had cancer, I remember someone telling me, you’re going to be really surprised by the people who step up and the people who step back. Focus on the people who step up.

 

And so I had learned when you talk about what lessons I’d learned from some of these other hard experiences, that was one of them. And ⁓ you learn to focus on the people that step up, but also the people who step back. It actually says more about them and it’s more about them than it is about you. So we’ve cancer, it might be that they have something traumatic. They don’t know what to say. So they’re just back away because it’s easier not to have to say anything at all. ⁓ With a situation like this, people

 

may feel unsafe to have anything to do with you because they might feel that they’re going to lose their jobs by osmosis, just by breathing the same air as you or contacting you to see if you’re okay. having the right people

 

DI GILLETT – Host (39:16)

in a line

 

definition

 

of a toxic workplace joke.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (39:30)

Right. But I mean, even beyond that, there’s friends who I think will you I see it as a gift, actually, because I know exactly who my people are now. There’s some what I’d call fairweather friends whose silence speaks for them. That’s fine. It is part of that grief. ⁓ But you learn to let them go and and learn to look at who steps up. And sometimes those people can really surprise you. They could be on the periphery of your life and

 

really play a central role through some of these more difficult moments. You know, when I think about the key people, I only because I needed to feel safe and because this was high profile in terms of the friends I had, this is these wonderful friends of mine who they knew something was wrong. This is before I went public. They could see it. They knew I wasn’t ready to talk about it, but one day I just.

 

I turned up on their doorstep, I walked into their kitchen, I burst into tears. I told them everything and they just hugged me and they have been with me ever since. ⁓ And I think some of the value that they bring is that when you lose yourself in these situations, they know you before and they can see you, who you are beyond this thing that has happened to you. And so I think it’s one of those things that sometimes when you’ve lost the confidence in yourself,

 

borrow somebody else’s until you can find it again. So they’re wonderful people. even, you know, I found this amazing Pilates teacher again, she didn’t know. She didn’t know the details of what I was going through, but she could see it in my body. And so she ⁓ she was also central. My lawyer, I had somebody who wasn’t just a game changer in terms of the law. But he was a

 

game changer in terms of life. And so now when I look at what I want to do with my life and have it purpose driven, he was a large part of that great psychologist. Yep. And then friends, old school friends that came out of the woodwork who knew me way back then. ⁓ And, you know, there’s parts of you just don’t change. You know, there’s no pretenses with people that have known you since childhood.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (41:29)

the give.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (41:43)

they reconnected and reached out. ⁓ I’d gone quiet on social media, I, you know, there was sort of friends and family who were sort of ⁓ doing their bit there. ⁓ So then there were people like my DFAT friends and they, again, they believed me because they knew me and they knew that you wouldn’t stand, I wasn’t somebody that would be standing up unless this is super serious and it had reached sort of this point. And they believed me and they,

 

came and made sure I wasn’t isolated because I think that’s one of the big things that can affect people in toxic workplaces is just how isolating it is. So not only are you gaslit and you don’t know what’s going on and you’re confused why this is happening and you don’t know who to trust, but often there are dynamics in play which cut you off. And so just someone walking, walking with me with the dogs, being with me.

 

There’s another person who I’ll forever remember. So a lot of senior, senior bureaucrats who I know quite well, I’ve never heard from again because it’s all so risky, but I’ve, I’ve had a long-term mentor who has been there throughout. And there was somebody that I didn’t know, senior bureaucrat who reached out to me because it just didn’t make sense to them. And they caught up with me a number of times and it wasn’t to discuss the ins and outs of the case. It was simply.

 

So I wasn’t alone. And the power of that, extraordinary, extraordinary and unexpected. And so I learned, you know, if anybody asked me for a coffee, particularly after I went public, there were people and people said LinkedIn. I’ve made real life friends off LinkedIn and met up with people for coffees because I learned to embrace these. These were my people. It’s a real gift. I know exactly who they are. And some of these people existed before and some of them didn’t.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (43:15)

and unexpected.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (43:37)

But these are people who share my values, who admire courage, ⁓ who may have, may or may not have lived experience, but these are my people. And so I actually, while it would be easy to see this as purely an exercise in grief, for me, it’s a gift. You don’t get many opportunities in life to find out really who’s cheering for you and who your people are. And I know exactly who they are now.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (44:03)

people are. So what is next for Jo Tonasky?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (44:08)

Well, it was never on my bucket list, but I have just launched my own business. I could have returned to diplomacy, but I think that thing that I talked about in terms of silence, I realized the value of my voice. I didn’t want to go back in the jar. And when you work in the public service, there’s a whole lot of rules around what you can or can’t do. And I couldn’t sort of just go on like this had never happened.

 

So I made a conscious decision to walk away from government and I wasn’t sure what to do next. took six months off. And if you’d asked me immediately afterwards, I would have told you that I just wanted to close this chapter of my life and move on. It was good to take the break. I got some good advice from friends that said, Jo, take a break. And I think they also know me that once I start work again, I’ll just dive straight into it. So. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – Host (45:00)

Have

 

a reputation for handing two jobs at once,

 

JO TARNAWSKY (45:04)

Well, ⁓ but again, the people just kept reaching out to me and I was doing something without noticing it on LinkedIn. I was liking and commenting on posts. It wasn’t necessarily posting about workplace issues, but ⁓ I was liking and commentating on a whole bunch of psychologists and academics that were working in this space. people would reach out to me and they would say, thank you. ⁓

 

that they were following me. And obviously they were in their own situations where they couldn’t openly like or comment on these posts themselves. But by watching what I was doing, it was empowering them to understand what was going on. And so they could make good decisions for themselves. And so I think I hit a period around July or August where I thought, you know what, taking a leaf out of this, there is something. And if I look at my lawyer and the conversations we’ve had around living a purpose led lives that

 

positively impact people, realized that I actually had an opportunity that if I leaned into this, well, it wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to be known for. This actually had the potential to help more people. And I had a real opportunity to do that. So while part of my business is around strategic advice and I have clients that I help that is more to do with my traditional background in international relations and government, there is a public part of it, which is around

 

helping people understand what has happened to them. call it workplace recovery because it’s not just about individuals, it’s around people. So for individuals, I’ve actually recorded a video series. So trust can be a really big thing and people can’t articulate it. They don’t know where to go, where to start. But if you can, I’ve sort of seen myself not as the medical advice, not as the legal advice, but helping that building block of understanding this is what’s happening so that then people can make a better decision about what they do from there.

 

and leading them to a whole bunch of resources that I have found. Books, podcasts, some of yours actually die and make the list. Yeah, about people just trying to get them into a better place because this is sadly everywhere and it can destroy lives. But then the second part of that is actually helping organisations because I sort of feel like when helping individuals, it’s a little bit like putting a bandaid on a cut leg. What you want to do is

 

DI GILLETT – Host (47:05)

Fantastic.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (47:25)

stop the leg being cut in the first place. And so workplace recovery, maybe they’ve had issues or whatever, but it’s helping people understand some of these lesser known dynamics because things like it is high performing ethical people that are targeted. Once you know that it helps you be more alert to it. And like so many problems in this world, once you shine a light on that, it takes away a lot of the power.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (47:27)

place.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (47:51)

So if I can educate workplaces more on some of the things that I have learned ⁓ and to help them, then I kind of know you’re not just healing or helping the organization, but you’re changing lives. And so that’s what I’m going to do.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (48:10)

done you. Do you think you’ll ever get the chance to educate your old employer or would you like to?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (48:18)

I would love a chance actually to come and actually help the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service because as I said in my second press conference, my goal is not to destroy them. They are the best. They are better than anything we’ve had in the past. And there’s some really good people that are working there that saw the stories of Brittany Higgins and others that wanted to come and make a difference.

 

What has happened though is that the infrastructure has been set up to still protect the people in power. Now this happened in the UK and they actually had to adjust the independent mechanisms because they weren’t independent, which is what we’re finding here. And so there’s a real opportunity here for the parliamentary workplace support service, which is what came out of the, one of the things that came out of the Jenkins review and the standard to sort of learn some of the early examples of people that just talk to people like me about

 

How do we adjust this? Like to think that they would get it all right in one shot, it’s complex. know, this is decades of bad behavior that has been up at parliament. so learning that and making adjustments, because what I think it’s going to end up being is not seen as independent, not trustworthy, and that’s not in anyone’s interest. We want this to work. And so actually, that’s where I think I’d be more helpful is not just in terms of my own office and my own boss, but

 

DI GILLETT – Host (49:19)

.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (49:42)

in terms of the broader system because I do get contacted by parliamentary workers from every single political colour and also some of the public servants that are working on the hill or elsewhere, other pockets of the hill, not necessarily staffers. This is not limited to one office or one body.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (50:05)

Partisan

 

issue that needs a bipartisan approach.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (50:08)

Correct. Correct.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (50:10)

Well, Jo, thank you so very much for sharing your story on The Power of Women. And again, thank you for trusting me to talk to you about your story, because I know it has been an incredibly difficult stage in your life. But you’ve coped with tough things before, so you have proven the resilience and the strength that you have got to get through these.

 

and to move beyond and I wish you all the very best in your new business. And I know that there’ll be others who will benefit from the tough experiences that you have had and you can share some of that hindsight and help them moving forward. I do have a closing question for you today through the lens of the power of women and touching on having the right people in your circle. So for the woman listening who still might be searching for their circle,

 

How do we find them and how do we hold on to the right people?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (51:12)

I think finding them, part of that is that, rightly or wrongly, we call it women’s intuition, the people who make you feel calm and safe, ⁓ where your nervous system relaxes, where you feel that you can be yourself, who are actively cheering for your success and that they want to see you thrive. I think that’s the first thing. I think look for the people who step up ⁓ when you do go through hard times. ⁓

 

And then I think you need to be able to sort of give back to them as well. And you can find them in unexpected places. So they might be long term friends, they might be people in your life right now. But like I have also said, they can also be found online. There is a wonderful community out there and it’s people like you, Daya, to be honest. I hope you don’t mind me saying that you were one of the people that reached out to me.

 

while not exclusively have they been women, the vast majority of people who have reached out have been women. And so I think your podcast is aptly described ⁓ that sometimes there is real power of women ⁓ in supporting the successes and supporting people through harder times ⁓ to get through this life. You’re doing great work, Di, and I love

 

DI GILLETT – Host (52:33)

making me feel emotional now.

 

JO TARNAWSKY (52:38)

One of the things that brings me great joy in life is seeing other people thrive and live their best lives and particularly where they’re making an impact on others and you are doing all of those things.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (52:48)

and we look forward to you doing exactly the same, Jo. So thank you again, wishing you all the best. We are going to share the link to your new website. Is it joetanarski.com or is it?

 

JO TARNAWSKY (53:01)

Yes, it is. And you can find me on LinkedIn as well. I’m just starting up Instagram and a sub stack, so follow me there as well. But LinkedIn is where I have the biggest… Diving all in. That’s right. learned a lot. Brilliant.

 

DI GILLETT – Host (53:11)

Out.

 

Fantastic. Well, thank you for sharing. We will share that with the community. And for the listeners, I think this is such a super important episode to share with somebody in your network because we all have either somebody within our sphere or we have personally experienced tough times at work. the choice to speak out does not

 

come easily. know in my own life there is a scenario that I have never put out there into the public space because at the time the cost of speaking out, the cost of that was too high at that time. But you never know Jo, I just might have it in me yet. it is an example for individuals who need to bring something to the fore and right or wrong. Well done. Until next time.

 

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Find Jo Tarnawsky at:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-t-94568417a/

Website www.jotarnawsky.com

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

 

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