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

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

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.

 

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 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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Next-Gen Leadership Breaking Barriers + Brand Building Via Social Media

Next-Gen Leadership Breaking Barriers + Brand Building Via Social Media

A masterclass on breaking barriers, self-reflection + building brand YOU.

Lana Samuels represents the future of leadership: fearless, curious, and unafraid to step into spaces still dominated by men. In this conversation, we explore her journey from graduate to global thinker, the role of social media in building her influence, and how she balances authenticity with professionalism while inspiring others online.

 

You’ll here:

How Lana built her leadership career and carved out opportunities in male-dominated industries.

The pivotal role of social media in amplifying her profile and shaping her success.

Insights on balancing authenticity with professionalism online.

Whether glass ceilings still exist for the next generation of women leaders.

What drives Lana’s reinvention and her vision for the future of leadership.

 

Lana said:

“Social media wasn’t just about posting — it became the platform where I built my credibility.”

“Authenticity isn’t the opposite of professionalism. It’s what makes leadership relatable and real.”

“Glass ceilings? They only exist if we stop pushing against them.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT – HOST (00:00)

So be remiss being the Power of Women podcast not to talk about females in a male-dominated industry. And I don’t want to overplay it, but it is in the wheelhouse of Power of Women. And particularly at the top end, which is where you’re playing, it’s largely male-dominated. How hard has it been breaking into that space? And how have your competitors responded?

 

LANA SAMUELS (00:27)

Great question. It has been hard. There’s one situation that really stands out as soon as you ask that question. I had a bit of a moment last year. I had a very good client of mine come to me and say, I had a bit of a moment with a competitor of yours the other day. And I said, really? He said, yeah, you know, I brought you up and he was a friend of his and he said, you know, Lana’s doing really well. You know, she’s sold recently for a friend of mine. There was some sort of,

 

story that he was saying and the male agent said, yeah, it’s because she’s a little bit too close to the husbands, if you know what I mean. And it broke my heart hearing that and still even saying that now really upsets me.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (01:10)

So that’s the throwaway male line that’s got to be sex implied for a female to be successful.

 

LANA SAMUELS (01:16)

female in my industry to be successful. And it’s not something that I’ve really supposed

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (01:22)

So

 

are you angry or emotional?

 

LANA SAMUELS (01:24)

emotional about it and I was angry as well and I really I kind of fought back hard I thought do I call this guy

 

Lana Samuels, White Fox Director here this afternoon. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. It’s been a long time coming, Di. When I think about my philosophy in business, I think it’s pretty simple. It’s do the right thing, never do anything illegal, and if you say you’re going to do something, make sure that you deliver. So I’ve always been in the ethos of under-promise and over-deliver and really nurture relationships because you’ve got one shot.

 

and reputation’s everything. Once you lose it, you never get it back.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (02:02)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And this is a shout out to join the Power of Women community because it is growing and it’s growing through our followers and our subscribers of the podcast. And we’ve also got our YouTube channel, which I’d love you to jump on.

 

I love exploring the journeys that shape remarkable careers, the choices, the sacrifices, the mentors and the lessons learnt along the way. Today’s conversation is a special one for me because my guest Lana Samuels quite literally grew up next door. I’ve had the pleasure of watching her journey, hearing her proud parents in all that she has achieved.

 

because what a journey it has been. And the reason I asked Lana to join me on the podcast, her success delves into what it really takes to rise in a competitive industry. Her ambition is fueled where resilience is tested. And in so doing, being recognized by her peers as an exemplar in an industry that doesn’t always get a great rap.

 

And it’s also an opportunity to get into the weeds about stepping into spaces still dominated by men and understand how Lana has been so successful in navigating that landscape, building credibility, earning respect and leading with both strength and authenticity. Lana Samuels, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

LANA SAMUELS (03:45)

Thank you, Di. What a beautiful introduction. You’re going to make me a little bit emotional.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (03:49)

And I know it’s only for us on camera today, but ⁓ your gorgeous mother is listening just outside the studio.

 

LANA SAMUELS (04:00)

is I’ve got my beautiful entourage with me today, my beautiful women. I’ve got Mum, who’s obviously a good friend of yours and my support system and my beautiful assistant Nellie. So the girls are all here celebrating one another and supporting. Beautiful.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (04:15)

So as I’ve said, you’ve grown up next door to me and I have watched your career rise. But it’s not so much that I want to draw that part of the story today, but there are so many aspects of what you have done that are going to be inspirational, particularly for younger women starting out on their career and breaking barriers. I would love to…

 

Start out with your early years, Lara. What or who shaped your drive and ambition?

 

LANA SAMUELS (04:50)

think my mum is the person that always shaped my drive and ambition. mean, you know, our journey as a family, you know, we went through some very difficult times growing up and it’s really funny even just driving here and parking today and being outside the South Melbourne market. That’s where I worked from the age of 14 to 18. know, mum and dad always instilled a really strong work ethic in myself and my brother growing up. And if you want something,

 

You need to go out and get it. Nothing’s going to be delivered and, you know, given to you on a silver platter. So definitely mum and dad. Also, I’d say mum, just as a really strong female, she really showed me what it was to work hard from a very young age. And, you know, it’s, it’s an amazing thing to have a strong female mentor in your life. And, Di, I’m not just saying it because I’m sitting here, but having you as a neighbour, I don’t think you realise, I remember so vividly finishing year 12 and speaking to you about.

 

I don’t know if you remember. do. Mum and dad said, speak to Di. Di will give you some great advice. I remember it was the lead up to finishing VCE. I had a conversation with you about which direction to go into because I was so confused. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. You are giving me some beautiful advice. I’ve been really blessed in my life having such beautiful, strong, empowering women around me.

 

I think it’s just so incredibly special to have that in your life and I’m really lucky that I’ve had it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (06:17)

Did you always imagine yourself in a career like this?

 

LANA SAMUELS (06:21)

I thought I would be in event management. That’s where I thought I would land. I’ve always been a hard worker, really intense. I love throwing myself in the deep end. I get bored really easily and I don’t think I would have survived an office job. I love being with people, trying new things and having new experiences. So did I think I’d get into real estate? No, I thought I’d probably be.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (06:44)

Remember we had that discussion when you came back from the UK and asked whether in fact you should.

 

LANA SAMUELS (06:48)

And I

 

was in tears one day speaking to you. I’ll never forget that moment. I asked you if I should get into real estate because we obviously, a bit of background on me, came back from the UK eight and a bit years ago. I moved back to Australia to join White Fox, which was a very small agency back then with only four of us. And I had a really rude awakening because I had no experience, no database.

 

no contacts after being in the UK for so many years. And I really just jumped in with a new brand that was trying to create noise. And funny enough, your other neighbor is now my business partner, Marty Fox. But to kind of unpack where I’m leading with this is I jumped in and drowned and I’m sure we’ll get to that in a moment. But I came to you in tears, really not sure what to do. And I remember you gave me some really great advice.

 

And I think it was along the lines of just keep going. You know, it’s not going to happen overnight. You know, if you love it and you love where it’s leading you and the right people, you know, you can do it. But nothing good comes easy.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (07:51)

No, it does not. So let’s, as you said, wind back because it was almost happenstance that you ended up working at White Fox. What’s the story?

 

LANA SAMUELS (08:04)

It’s a crazy story. So I was living in London for 10 years. was coming back. I was in sales. So interesting story. I’ll go through it very quickly with you because it’s a long story. at the age of 18, I met my husband. I fell in love. He was from the UK. I told my mom and dad I was moving to the UK to go and do a year just to test it out.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (08:10)

doing in

 

LANA SAMUELS (08:29)

told them that I had $10,000 in my bank account and I think I only had about $1,000 because I knew that they wouldn’t let me go. I never get, mom was like, how much money do you have savings? And I said, I’ve got over 10,000 and I didn’t, but I knew that, you know, I’d make it work, you know, sink or swim, just jump in and make it happen. So moved to the UK when I was 18, worked in sales in Mayfair for 10 years, working in five-star hotels, Michelin-star restaurants.

 

doing drink sales. I was doing all the big drinks distribution contracts for some of the best, biggest hotels, you know, and Mayfair night clubs. Having an absolute ball, came back for a holiday. Dad said to me, I’ve got to introduce you to our next door neighbor, a guy called Marty Fox. And I’ll never forget, I said to him, who’s Marty Fox? And dad said, he’s a real estate agent. And I rolled my eyes and said,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (09:04)

the FMCG sector.

 

LANA SAMUELS (09:22)

Why do need to meet him? And he said, no, you’re looking to buy a property. Should meet him. He’s a lovely guy. He’s a go getter. ⁓ and I think you’ll get along with him really well. So dad introduced me to Marty, who was on the other side. So you’re on the right hand side of mom and dad. Marty and Charlotte were on the left hand side of mom and dad. we connected. Isn’t it? Well, straight, poor Melbourne. Everyone’s interconnected. Yeah. And met Marty, got along like a house on fire, bought my first property from him that day.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (09:39)

insist

 

LANA SAMUELS (09:51)

in Elwood and as we were signing contracts, I remember him saying to me, Lana, I’m about to launch a brand in a few weeks called White Fox. He showed me the logo, the first office on Coventry Street in South Melbourne. he said, you’re going to come work for me. I’ve just got this feeling. And my husband said to me on the way home that day, you need to go and work with this boy. He is special. He’s entrepreneurial. He’s got magic about him and he’s going to do great things. So we went back to the UK.

 

And I started to watch the business unfold through social media and I was watching no suits, no ties, beautiful marketing. And they were really emotionally connecting with their audience. And I was the first client. I was the very first person that bought a property through the business before they launched. And as a customer, I was on the journey and I was completely engrossed in it. long story short, Marty said to me, you’ve got to come and move to Australia. Like I need you to join the business. And we kept in touch and.

 

I was watching and I said to my husband, think if we’re going to do it, we do it now. Whilst the business is young and I have some really good training and we don’t have kids yet. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (10:59)

…a risk because,

 

LANA SAMUELS (11:02)

I know and I really took a big punt there, Di. You know, we packed up our whole world and moved back to Australia after 10 years, which is a big jump. It is. And moved in with Mum and Dad, next door to you. And the journey began.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (11:14)

Next door to me?

 

So what role did you start as?

 

LANA SAMUELS (11:20)

So I made a huge mistake. So I jumped straight into the deep end. I jumped in as a standalone agent straight away and it was a disaster. know, brand new brand, really young team backs up against the wall, trying to create business, trying to create noise and never been in before. my girlfriends and my friends were younger, you know, we’re in our mid twenties and they weren’t doing the transactions. My best friend’s dad, you know, is one of the

 

founders and owners of one of the biggest agencies in Melbourne. So all of my friends’ parents were transacting with the agency that, you know, they had credibility in relationships and deep rooted relationships with. So I kind of just was in the middle of nowhere and had a full breakdown. I threw in the towel, I quit. After my first six months, you know, I really struggled coming in as a standalone agent, went to Marty’s house, on his kitchen floor, bawling my eyes out.

 

This probably would have been off the back of a conversation with you, die. So hard. No one’s given me an opportunity. There’s not many women out there that I really knew of or looked up to or anyone that was mentoring me in the industry. And I really struggled. So I threw in the towel and Marty said, you’re not throwing in the towel. You’re to come in and be my EA and I’m going to teach you everything that you need to know. You need to start with the basics and learn and build.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (12:39)

How did that feel? You’d already established a career so then to step back.

 

LANA SAMUELS (12:44)

It was

 

quite confronting and my ego stepped in and I really hesitated there for a moment and I thought well hold on I’ve just had this incredible career in the UK, a huge team, I worked with billionaires, were travelling and they were flying me everywhere for business opportunities over there and had this incredible lifestyle. Why do want to be in EA? And I’m going to be back to the bottom of the ladder. So that was a really hard decision and a really difficult moment for me and it was quite confronting.

 

But I had to swallow my pride and I had to listen to somebody that was incredibly good at what they were doing and someone that I really looked up to and trusted and still do. And I had to back him and he made the right call there because it changed everything for me. It’s the best thing that I ever did. I started again and I had to step it back.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (13:32)

So how long was that trajectory from EA? Because today you’re a director. Managing director.

 

LANA SAMUELS (13:38)

Managing director.

 

The journey was, it was a good four years. Yeah, it took me four years. That’s nothing. But the four years, it’s really funny. I spoke about it earlier this year, was a keynote speaker at the biggest real estate conference in Australasia. Yep. Correct. Eric. So I spoke in front of six and a half thousand peers within the industry.

 

And I was actually the only female keynote speaker other than Kamala Harris, which is pretty mind blowing. But I spoke about the journey in the four years. I don’t think she has either. But the four years that I did as an EA, I would say is equivalent to about 15 years in the industry. That was a supercharged crash course. that’s a hundred miles an hour. And don’t forget real estate is 24 seven pretty much. You’re seven days a week. There’s no off button.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (14:12)

She sold any real estate.

 

LANA SAMUELS (14:32)

And I think for me, jumping in the early days, you know, and starting off in a brand that was just really beginning to build, I got exposed to a lot of things that no one would ever get exposed to now. Now we have 15 offices across Australia and New Zealand, but back then there was one office, second one opening, and I got to see every layer of the deal, every layer of recruiting, everything that was going right, everything that was going wrong.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (14:56)

And you had more of Marty’s time. So he was more available back then.

 

LANA SAMUELS (15:00)

It was

 

perfect. It was really good timing. I’m very lucky that I got that opportunity, but I really grabbed it with both hands. I made the most of it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (15:09)

So title today of Managing Director, are you where you envisaged you would be at this point in your career?

 

LANA SAMUELS (15:18)

Yes, further along than what I thought, but I always had a really clear vision in my mind. So my gut is never wrong. I always trust my gut feeling. I knew there was something incredibly special about Marty and what he had in mind. He told me the journey trajectory from the very start and everything that he promised that he would do, he’s done and more. So

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (15:24)

Tell me about that.

 

LANA SAMUELS (15:45)

Along the journey, I knew that some pretty big opportunities were coming. And I knew very special. He’s like my brother, you know, absolutely adore him. I always said to Marty that I wanted to be a director within the business, but before I was 40. So and I’m now 36. I had that really clear goal. Hit it early. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (15:52)

special relation.

 

You’ve hit it early.

 

I don’t know many 36 year old managing directors, Lana. Female.

 

LANA SAMUELS (16:16)

There you go. There’s not a lot.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (16:17)

That is amazing. So you’ve also built not only an impressive career, but a really strong personal brand and social, your social media presence, it’s engaged, it’s polished, it resonates and it draws ⁓ a high attention out there in the world of Instagram. How intentional was that from the beginning?

 

LANA SAMUELS (16:40)

Thank you.

 

Intentional. Yeah. So I knew that I had an uphill battle because I didn’t have contacts when I joined the business and when I got into real estate and I didn’t have a big following on Instagram when I came back to Melbourne. many did I had about 500 people. ⁓ Yeah it was a small following. was friends, family, people from the UK. And today? 12 and a bit thousand. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (16:56)

Any digital?

 

LANA SAMUELS (17:08)

So I knew that if I wanted to really create noise, build credibility, get attention in the right way and build my networks and my relationships that I would have to think bigger and I would have to think smart because I’d been away for so many years. So to put myself on a platform and to create a story, which is what real estate is all about, it’s about storytelling and connection. I knew that I wanted to create a bit of a brand online and a presence.

 

and I knew that that would fast track and amplify my career in a very short period of time if I did it correctly. And when I first began, I looked around and I don’t really have any females within my industry that I looked up to. Real estate was very different back then. was, you know, and that’s not long ago. This is, I’m talking eight years ago. know, very corporate, you know, the females always in Navy or black and

 

the traditional approach and you know which I love Navy of Black, don’t get me wrong. ⁓ was just, there was uniforms almost and no one was pushing the boundaries and I was lucky that Marty was pushing the boundaries in his way with his fashion you know the loafers, no suits, no tires, no socks and you probably remember it watching him jump out into the car on Port Melbourne as a neighbour.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (18:07)

But not good.

 

LANA SAMUELS (18:29)

But I thought, hold on, why can’t I have fun with it? And I’ve come from a fashion background. Mum’s been in fashion. I love colour. I love experimenting. So I started to really be playful with it. And I started to be myself and I’m in a bright pink dress today. This is how I dress for business. But at the time, no one was doing it in property videos and in real estate. So I thought, I’m just going to be me and just have fun with it. And then I started to try and be a little bit more strategic with it. I started to match my properties. And that became a thing.

 

and I’ll never forget I had a big beautiful listing in Turok and it was my first trophy listing that Marty put me on. He said I’m going get you to do the video here, 16 million dollar house in Turok and I walked into the kitchen and there was a beautiful duck egg blue because the internal carcass of the kitchen was a Stephen A. Kirst home, extraordinary, was duck egg blue and I thought I’m going to go and buy a duck egg blue dress. Where am going to find a duck egg blue dress and I don’t know where I found it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (19:27)

can’t think of a male going, I’m gonna match my tie to…

 

LANA SAMUELS (19:31)

But

 

I started to do it and I went out and bought shoes and a dress that matched. was something so small but as soon as it went live and it went out on social media and it went out to the meta universe, people really stopped and you know, started commenting on it and it got a lot of attention and then that started to roll and then I started to match property videos moving forward and then now I have clients asking me, what are you wearing for our video? They’re excited by it.

 

It shows that you care and it ensures that you’re memorable and it became my thing. was it strategic? Yes, in a way it was. Did I expect that it would go to this level? No, but I was just being myself. has exceeded your expectations.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (20:11)

Yeah. And therein lies the danger for any employers because it’s which brand walks through the door first. And that’s been the same in my industry and I think it’s the same in any service industry. And if I could leave that as a message for any listeners, in developing a brand, sometimes the brand that

 

is above the door isn’t as powerful as the brand that walks through the door. And therein lies a challenge for employees and employers as to how one manages that scenario. your online presence was intentional. Is anybody else doing the same as you in the marketplace? have they started to follow you?

 

LANA SAMUELS (20:52)

Absolutely.

 

Now,

 

it’s funny because as a brand, we were ridiculed in the beginning with our social media. You know, I remember so clearly other agencies against us in listing appointments with Laugh and Snigger and White Fox, you know, you can’t sell through social media. This was so early in the piece. We were the only ones who really took it to the next level. We were having such fun with it and being so creative and pushing boundaries and really disrupting the industry from the traditional.

 

way of doing things and introducing cars, introducing fashion, introducing beautiful video music content. You know, I did a video not long ago where I had, and it sounds ridiculous, five outfit changes for one video, a big home in Brighton, but I wanted the buyer experience to move through the home with me and really feel how you can live in the home, you know, from the poolside down to the area downstairs, which is the speak easy bar, changed outfits to make it memorable.

 

But then we’ll also know that I care, but it’s also about having fun with it. So we always did push the boundaries and have fun and do things differently. At the start, they did laugh and ridicule and now they’re trying to copy. So it’s funny we giggle. You know you’re winning. You know you’re winning, but you’ve got to keep pushing the boundaries and being nimble and changing. So like we were discussing before we jumped online, you’ve got to constantly be fresh thinking of new ideas and people do catch up, but we’re still doing things that no one’s ever done before, which is really cool.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (22:31)

So have you found any female mentors in the industry? Marty’s clearly been in industry, but have you found other women prepared to mentor

 

LANA SAMUELS (22:39)

I have, I found some beautiful, powerful women and again, back to the power of social media, connecting through socials, know, meeting incredible operators from all across Australia. I’ve got two beautiful mentors in Sydney that have been in real estate for 20 odd years that are phenomenal operators that I really look up to and lean on for advice. I’ve got incredible women in Melbourne, people overseas that I connect with that I’ve met through social media. It just really unlocks.

 

so many powerful relationships. So this world through my phone has really opened up a completely different pathway for me and connected me with some extraordinary women out there that are really inspiring.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (23:20)

That’s fantastic. Well coming out we’re going to talk about breaking the glass ceiling. Yes. And the cost of success. If you’re loving the Power of Women podcast, be sure to jump on to our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

 

Glass ceilings Lana, and I have a controversial view on glass ceilings that isn’t always ⁓ well received by my female peers. Do you feel there that they exist? Do you feel you have one?

 

LANA SAMUELS (23:51)

Yeah

 

I feel that they do exist and they’re there to be smashed.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (24:03)

There we go, straight up. So what about your peer group and your friendship group of women of similar age? What are they saying about glass ceilings in the industries that they’re working in?

 

LANA SAMUELS (24:05)

You

 

think for me personally, my girlfriends have chosen careers where they’re quite different to mine, not as male orientated, if I’m being completely honest. Majority of my girlfriends are in the design space and they’re in spaces where there’s a lot more female successful operators. So I wouldn’t say that I’ve had the exposure from like, they’re in fashion, they’re in the creative space.

 

They’re in design and typically speaking has a lot more females within that world. I wouldn’t say that the glass ceilings have been as

 

within my friendship circles. For me, think I’ve probably seen it the most out of all of us.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:04)

So reflecting back on starting out and pushing through, when did you first start to hit it and have to… Your words smashed…

 

LANA SAMUELS (25:10)

So, yeah,

 

Smash Through would have been about three and a half years ago. So I came out of being an EA into what’s called a standalone agent role three and a half years ago, close to four.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:22)

How hard was that transition? Because often transitioning within an organisation is difficult because garnering respect from one role to the next role can be really hard to

 

LANA SAMUELS (25:34)

Well, it was really hard for me because I was always, you on the side with Marty. He was the lead. So I was the EA, absolutely loved it, built some incredible relationships. But you were the second wheel. when it was funny, Marty actually sat me down one day and said, hey, as much as I would love you to be my EA until I’m 90 years old, because we just have a ball and we work so well together, I would be doing you a disservice to keep you in this role when you

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (25:46)

With a second wish

 

LANA SAMUELS (26:03)

are writing the numbers that you’re writing. You should be a top female operator in Australia. And this is your moment to go. Like, I’m going to have to cut you off, unfortunately. That’s so… Very selfless. ⁓ does Yeah. I was so upset because real estate’s hard. You know, it’s…

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (26:14)

That doesn’t happen so many times.

 

LANA SAMUELS (26:27)

It’s very up and down. It’s not a stable industry. And if you do it, you’ve to be 150 % dialed in. you can’t do it part time. It’s really quite difficult. he didn’t hold me back. It was the best thing that he ever did for me at the time I was upset because I didn’t want to have that responsibility, but I just did it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (26:47)

correlations between real estate and the recruitment and search world that I came out of. It’s very similar.

 

LANA SAMUELS (26:52)

It’s very similar. So I jumped in to a standalone agent role and opened an office within the space of two weeks, hired a team of 10 males within the same week and hired my beautiful EA. So there was a million things that happened at once that I just jumped into. And that was how I broke out to become a standalone agent. But to go back to your question about, you know, when did I feel the ceiling? Like, what was that moment? It would have been when I…

 

went out and started to have to pitch a business by myself as a female with all of sudden all of this responsibility with a team to train, with mouths to feed, know, with salaries to pay for and essentially being on commission only, which is what you are as a

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (27:36)

running a profit centre. Correct.

 

LANA SAMUELS (27:38)

Yeah. So that was the moment and really going in and competing only against men, which was what was happening when I first started. was EAs that were females, but I wasn’t going head to head with female standalone agents.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (27:54)

Did the marketplace respond if you were going out and pitching to a potential client and the client was male? How did that go for you?

 

LANA SAMUELS (28:01)

Well, I had a beautiful experience and I’m really blessed to say that. I always say to my clients 90 % of the yes. And it’s also knowing when to turn away business, which I’m very good at doing. Not everyone’s going to be on your same wavelength and respect you and you meet people from time to time where you’re like, oh, you’re not for me and that’s okay. Real estate is quite intense because you’re in someone’s home.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (28:09)

That’s down to you.

 

LANA SAMUELS (28:26)

And it’s an intense process because you’re across the emotions, the finances. Like, you’re in their world and their space. So you see a lot and you see the good. So my experience going in was incredible. You know, I am a hard worker, as I think you know. You know, I never stop. If I’m in, 100%.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (28:36)

Dabbing the ugly

 

LANA SAMUELS (28:48)

And I started off small and built my way up from there, but I started off, I was very lucky that I tapped into my past clientele that I’d been nurturing over the four years of being an EA. And I tapped into my network of people that I’d been building and then making the change and, you know, the standalone agents through social media had a lot of people reaching out to me and saying, hey, why don’t you come and have a look at my house? So I was really lucky. they were coming to you? Yeah, it started, it of came out of nowhere.

 

But I’ve been doing so much work behind the scenes for years. Next to Marty, you know, we’d be taking on clients, he would list, he would sell, but I’d be nurturing on the buyers and building those relationships. And then all of a sudden, they were needing to transact, buy or sell again. So it’d be coming to me. So I was really lucky, but it was a lot of strategic work in the background to nurture those relationships so that when it was time to kind of move out, everything started to fall into place for me.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (29:42)

So you’ve seen, look, this is all the upside and this is all the positives, but there’s absolutely sacrifices that come with success. Can we talk about what some of those have been?

 

LANA SAMUELS (29:55)

Missing my best friend’s wedding last year and being a bridesmaid. ⁓ Not being able to go overseas because it’s peak season in real estate. Being spring really hard. That was a really difficult decision for me to make.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (30:08)

received by the people on the other end.

 

LANA SAMUELS (30:11)

understanding but really hurt, like devastated. ⁓ And that was purely I had to make a business decision. We were in a very difficult space as a market, you know, all the interest rates, I had to claw back business and being a high performer and managing a team. I could not step away for three weeks and leave my team like that.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (30:31)

anniversary performance results to deliver.

 

LANA SAMUELS (30:35)

And clients that wanted, you know, that have expectations they list with me, they’re expecting me at the front door. can’t just tap out.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (30:42)

be seen in a photo across the world.

 

LANA SAMUELS (30:44)

Exactly,

 

drinking a cocktail. Sometimes you can. It’s a very hard one though, Di, because you need boundaries and you need to have a life. But I had to make that decision, unfortunately, that I had to put the business first in this occasion. She knows I love her and, you know, that it wasn’t an easy decision, but there’s been sacrifices of big milestones and moments, but little things, you know. I was working seven days a week for the first five years.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (31:10)

How is he still working now? ⁓

 

LANA SAMUELS (31:12)

I’m doing big hours. It’s six days a week now. I have Sundays that are a non-negotiable. It is what it is. And I love it though. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Like for me, it’s not work. you. Yeah, it fuels me. It’s a pleasure. You have your moments, your good moments and your bad moments. But if you’re looking at your watch in this industry, it’s not for you. it. It’s just not. The phone starts at 7 a.m. It will probably stop at about 10, 30, 11 o’clock for me because by the time people finish work,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (31:17)

No.

 

Yeah.

 

LANA SAMUELS (31:41)

They’re wanting to have those conversations with you, so you’ve got to be available and that’s very hard.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (31:46)

And I heard a few of those over the fence. know how long the hours are. And the search world’s the same. I used to work on an international time clock. International time clock was 24 hours.

 

LANA SAMUELS (31:58)

Yeah, exactly. Nonsensical. It’s intense and you can only do it if you love it. Otherwise you hit breaking point and then you just phase out.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (32:07)

So were there ever moments or have there been moments where you feel you’ve bitten off more than you can chew?

 

LANA SAMUELS (32:14)

Weekly.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (32:16)

Well there’s clarity. What are the sorts of things that trigger that feeling? What could it be? As small as what and as big as what?

 

LANA SAMUELS (32:17)

⁓ Daily.

 

Do

 

you know, it’s, don’t think anyone prepares you on as much as I love it. How hard it is managing people and managing a team. know, for me, I’m… Great. No one warned me at how hard it would be. No, I love my team, but it’s a lot of responsibility. can have all sorts of different shapes and sizes. So for me, I think one of the biggest challenges is time. I’m listing, I’m selling, I’m dealing with people’s most, you know,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (32:33)

That’s why there’s a whole industry.

 

LANA SAMUELS (32:54)

their biggest assets and some of the biggest moments in their lives and it’s money, you know, it’s important. So I’m doing that and I’m generating, I’m the biggest generator in my office and running my business and my clientele and then having 10 people that I’m managing on a daily that can be up, that can be down, that need this, that need that, they need support, they need deal mechanics, they need a problem fixed or a code crack. So for me, I think my biggest challenge is time. But I’m really trying to be mindful of it.

 

and use my time really wisely, but I’m very emotional and it’s something that I’m trying to improve on. I want everything to be perfect. is. Attention to detail perfectionists. So I’ve got to sometimes learn to pull back, but that’s the thing that I struggle with at the moment. I want everyone to be happy, perfect, everything on point, but there’s only so much I can do.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (33:30)

of your coaching.

 

Leave that at the door!

 

And that perfectionism trait, and I know it, only too well, leaves you being your own toughest master and worst enemy. However, not delivering to that level or presenting to that level or showing up at that level is more stressful.

 

LANA SAMUELS (33:57)

Yeah, very true

 

Very much.

 

Very true. I couldn’t say it better myself. I’d rather have that pressure than not do it, because if I wasn’t doing it, I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (34:17)

So you’ve been recognised as one of the top 100 agents in Australia now. Yes. You’ve got to that level. How much pressure comes with staying at that level?

 

LANA SAMUELS (34:29)

I think it’s what you put on yourself. No one puts pressure on me like I put on myself. So it’s a huge accolade, something that I’m incredibly proud of because there’s not many females on that list and not many females under 40 on that list. Not the stats off the top of my head, but from when I looked at it, I thought, wow, there’s not a lot of women in here and there should be a lot more because there’s so many incredible operators within my industry. Look, it’s, it’s an incredible,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (34:44)

Do you that’s

 

LANA SAMUELS (34:59)

accolade as I said, but the pressure is you just got to perform for your clients daily and those awards and those celebrations come along the way. It’s not why I do it. Exactly right. Exactly right. So it’s great, but you keep it moving. It’s on to the next.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (35:08)

Then you’re only as good as you last year.

 

So be remiss being the Power of Women podcast not to talk about females in a male-dominated industry. And I don’t want to overplay it, but it is in the wheelhouse of Power of Women. And particularly at the top end, which is where you’re playing, it’s largely male-dominated. I could reel off the ones in our neck of the woods, and they’re all male. How hard has it been

 

breaking into that space and how have your competitors responded?

 

LANA SAMUELS (35:52)

That’s a great question. It has been hard. ⁓ There’s one situation that really stands out as soon as you ask that question. had a bit of a moment last year. I had a very good client of mine ⁓ come to me and say, I had a bit of a moment with a competitor of yours the other day. And I said, really? He said, yeah, you know, I brought you up and he was a friend of his and he said, you know, Lana’s doing really well. You know, she’s…

 

So recently for a friend of mine, there was some sort of story that he was saying and the male agent said, yeah, it’s because she’s a little bit too close to the husbands, if you know what I mean. And it broke my heart hearing that and still even saying that now really upsets me.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (36:38)

That’s

 

the throwaway male line that’s got to be sex implied for a female to be successful.

 

LANA SAMUELS (36:43)

young

 

female in my industry to be successful and it’s not something that I’ve really spoken about.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (36:50)

Free all emotions.

 

LANA SAMUELS (36:52)

emotional about it and I was angry as well and I really I kind of fought back hard I thought do I call this guy I told my husband he was horrified and so upset because he’s seen the sacrifices and he’s seen you know the hours that I do and the tears along the way and all the things that we as a team have sacrificed for me to be sitting where I am. Team, and Yeah such a slap in the face and just such a low blow.

 

I started really kicking his ass in listing appointments and taking more business from him. I to mom, I spoke to dad and I spoke to people within my nucleus and said, what would you do? And think it was mom that said, don’t do anything, just silence and show him how good you really are. That’s, you know, it was very,

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (37:26)

Money speaks fully

 

LANA SAMUELS (37:43)

easy to pick up the phone and make that call I was very close and I thought, no, I’m going to be a real lady about this. I’m going to show you. I’m going to show you how good I actually am. And, you know, it’s funny. I think he knows that I know. We have never had the conversation. I’m really polite to him when I see him because reputation is everything. I said earlier, you’ve got one shot and I want to be. Yeah. I just think, look, you’re going to say that because you’re threatened. And mum always says it’s when they stop talking about you. That’s when you should be worried.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:11)

That’s exactly right.

 

LANA SAMUELS (38:12)

You

 

know, so if they’re talking it’s a good thing. When they stop you might be in bit of trouble.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:18)

So do you feel the industry is shifting now?

 

LANA SAMUELS (38:21)

Definitely. And I’ve really seen it in our business. We’ve got over 50 % of our agents are female within the company, which is amazing. Marty. Marty’s been a driver and pioneer of really amplifying women and pushing us and.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:33)

Who’s driving that?

 

And he has sticked.

 

LANA SAMUELS (38:42)

getting us as much limelight as we can. I all the women are pushing it and we’ve got incredible female auctioneers and just so many beautiful personalities and strong independent women within the company.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (38:53)

don’t think I’ve seen a female auctioneer in action.

 

LANA SAMUELS (38:57)

They’re very good. Yeah. See our girls are unbelievable. yeah, it’s definitely changing diet. You know, even when I look back five years ago, even in the business, there was only a handful of us females, a lot of men, but there’s a lot of women coming through the ranks now and a lot of women.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (39:13)

And your social media will be playing a significant role in that.

 

LANA SAMUELS (39:18)

Thank I get a lot of women from across Australia messaging me, know, saying, you’ve really inspired me. I got into real estate because of you and you’ve, you know, shown me that I can be myself and that’s so touching and beautiful to hear that. And, you know, I get messages daily. Nellie’s started creating a bit of a scrapbook of all the beautiful messages that I’ve received over the years and it’s really, really special.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (39:42)

So what would you like to see change still? What still needs to happen?

 

LANA SAMUELS (39:47)

We’ve definitely made a lot of movement. I think it’s getting a lot better. I think women across the board in high-powered positions in real estate could really open up and change. There’s still a lot of the old school mentality out there. Us as a business, we’re very different, but I think as an industry, I think we need to open up the floor for more strong female operators and more opportunities at the top.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (40:14)

Yeah. So real estate aside, what advice would you give to any young woman starting to her career, pushing into a male dominated space?

 

LANA SAMUELS (40:29)

beautiful strong mentors around you, people that inspire you.

 

Don’t take no as an answer. And I would say, if you want it, you can make it happen. There’s nothing that is out of your reach. I look at where I started and what I’m doing today. I knew where I wanted to go. I set a really clear timeline of what I wanted to hit and I made it happen and I got my head down and did it. So nothing’s impossible. If you want it, go and get it.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (40:38)

Yeah. ⁓

 

My last question for you today, Lana, is what is a phrase that defines you?

 

LANA SAMUELS (41:07)

what is the phrase that defines me? That’s a great one.

 

I think just I’m a hard worker. Anyone that’s worked with me knows that I give 150 % to everything I do and if I can’t, I won’t do it. I’m all in. Yep.

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (41:27)

Brilliant. Lana, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. know hearing what you’ve done and how you’ve done it is going to be inspirational for so many women listening to this because age aside, you’ve broken into a male-dominated space. You have done it in record time to the level of managing director and you have

 

held your head high and taken the high road when individuals from the not so fair sex have been not so fair. Thank you. And I have no doubt that you’ll be taking their business away from them any time soon. So congratulations.

 

LANA SAMUELS (42:14)

Thank you for all your beautiful support over the years. From the bottom of my heart. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT – HOST (42:19)

It’s easy to give, So that is absolutely wonderful. But it is a reminder of how sort of blending my past career with my new career in amplifying women’s voices comes together. And you’re a great example of that. thank you. And thank you for listening. Until next time.

 

LANA SAMUELS (42:36)

Very special.

 

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Find Lana Samuels at:

Website https://www.whitefoxrealestate.com.au/team/lana-samuels/

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Unlocking the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Unlocking the Power of Emotional Intelligence

What really separates the leaders who inspire from those who fail? According to Amy Jacobson, it isn’t IQ. It’s EQ.

In this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, Di Gillett is joined by emotional intelligence and human behaviour specialist Amy Jacobson to explore how EQ changes the way we lead, connect, and build culture.

Amy draws on her expertise as a keynote speaker, program facilitator, and twice Wiley-published author (Emotional Intelligence and The Emotional Intelligence Advantage) to break down misconceptions about EQ and show how it can be strengthened.

 

In this episode, we explore:

➜ The difference between EQ and IQ — and why the how and why matter more than the what.

➜ How empathy is both a strength and a risk — and how to avoid being a pushover.

➜ Why toxic positivity erodes trust and damages workplace culture.

➜ Real-life stories of leaders who improved their EQ and transformed their careers.

➜How balancing IQ and EQ shapes better hiring, teamwork, and leadership.

 

This episode is a reminder that success is not about perfection or constant positivity — it’s about being real, empathetic, and willing to grow.

 

Amy said:

“Success is happiness.”

“Success is happiness.”

“Empathy is one of the greatest skills you can build — but it’s exhausting if you try to use it in every situation.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here 👇

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

AMY (00:00)

So I believe success is happiness. And when I say that, I mean, you need to dance like you’re in Jimmy Fallon in a lipsink battle. You want to eat the chicken wings in public and lick your fingers and not be embarrassed at all. You’re going to laugh at yourself because it keeps you grounded, but it also keeps you light. You want to eat the cookies. No one wants, no one has to have the cookies. We eat it because we want to, and they’re delicious.

 

and give out hugs and compliments like happiness depends on it.

 

DI (00:31)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievement of women from all walks of life. And this is your seat at the table for you to follow and subscribe and be part of every fearless, game-changing story that we tell here at the Power of Women. So after more than 40 years in corporate life and

 

30 of those as an executive search specialist, I have spent countless hours assessing executives’ experience, their cultural fit, their behavioural traits and their emotional intelligence. Some of them have it, some of them don’t. And the real differentiator isn’t just IQ or the technical skill because it is EQ, how the person influences, how they adapt, how they connect, that really makes the difference.

 

So joining me today is Amy Jacobson, emotional intelligence and human behavior specialist, keynote speaker. She’s also a sought after media commentator, a program facilitator and two time Wiley author. And together Amy and I are going to explore what emotional intelligence really means, how it shapes leadership and culture and tease out a few workplace scenarios, the good and the bad.

 

And we’re also going to explore how you can approve your own EQ if in fact it’s at the lower end of the scale. Amy Jacobson, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

AMY (02:06)

Thank you so much for having me, Di.

 

DI (02:09)

Amy, congrats on your latest book. I can see the placard in the back. Just give us a bit of a sense of what it’s about.

 

AMY (02:16)

So this one is focusing on two of the toughest areas that we tend to avoid as human beings. So it’s really around that managing the change, which we know is happening every day, right? So how do we get in and really manage or master that change area in line with the way that the mind works? So I like to say rather than change management, bringing in that change intelligence that aligns to the wiring of our mind and also the other areas of difficult conversations.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone die who loves having a difficult conversation so we tend to avoid them and this book really dives into the reasons why we avoid them but also the impact that we have when we’re having them because a lot of the times it’s actually us that make the conversation difficult not so much the other person.

 

DI (03:07)

Mind you, I think sometimes, I’m not sure that I’ve met anybody who likes having a difficult conversation, but I’ve certainly met plenty of people who make a conversation difficult.

 

AMY (03:17)

Yes,

 

that’s very true, very true.

 

DI (03:20)

Yeah. So Amy, for the listener grappling with emotional intelligence and not to conflate it with IQ, what exactly do you mean when you say EQ, the abridged version of emotional intelligence?

 

AMY (03:40)

So think the biggest differentiator when we look at IQ and EQ is that your IQ is what you know and what you can do. So it is really like the skills that are in it’s that technical part. It’s a real logical part coming into play where your EQ or your emotional intelligence is the how and why you do it. So these are the real reasons, the reasons why you choose to say that or you do that or how you actually deliver it to the people around you. ⁓

 

We’re talking about that space of understanding what makes us tick. What is the wirings? What is the values beliefs that have made up who we are today that is really driving us to take those steps and not just understanding what makes us tick, but also understanding what we can control in this world, right? Because there’s only one real thing we can control and that is ourselves and how we choose to respond.

 

And it’s not until we understand ourselves in that detailed way that we can then get out of our own head and start to understand that everyone’s different and it is okay for people to be different. So that emotional intelligence allows us to be able to get out of our head and think, okay, this person is why you’re different to me. That’s okay. What is the impact I’m having on them? And what is the best way that we can work together to get the end result that we desire?

 

DI (05:03)

So are you actually born with it or I’m sure we feel some people are born without it? How does it play out?

 

AMY (05:12)

So it’s a bit of a mixed hour. There are definitely people that are naturally born with higher levels of emotional intelligence and I think we tend to see emotional intelligence a lot more in young children where we encourage them to face their emotions, to deal with their emotions, to talk them through, to care about the people around them and really be a decent human being as they’re growing up.

 

As we get older though, we tend to decrease that focus on emotional intelligence and we start to bring those areas of, you know, that materialistic success into our lives and you know, how are we, are we good enough? Are we contributing enough? And this is where the emotional intelligence starts to get blurred. people are definitely born with it and some people higher levels than others. And you tend to find people who

 

do have those naturally higher levels of emotional intelligence, can’t quite understand why other people don’t get it, because they don’t quite realize what they’ve got. They’re kind of like, isn’t this what everyone does? Like, why would you do anything different? But we have shown as well that emotional intelligence is a skill. So it is something you can learn, like any other it’s learnable. Absolutely it is. Is it easy?

 

No, it’s not easy because when you’re learning emotional intelligence, you’re challenging the wiring that’s already embedded in your mind. So all of those values of belief.

 

DI (06:40)

You’re

 

probably getting some pretty tough feedback too.

 

AMY (06:42)

Right, so it’s definitely not easy, but absolutely it is teachable. You’ve just got to be really committed to making a difference.

 

DI (06:50)

So we’ve all had leaders that we think, well they think they’re self-aware and we’ve got a different view. How do you break through that denial? How do you actually even suggest to somebody that their EQ’s at the lower end of the scale?

 

AMY (07:09)

You’ve got to bring it to their to make them aware of it right but if you if you are bringing it to them and showing them examples and having that chat around them and they are not accepting that and they’re not aware of it and they stay in that denial there’s very little you can do because you cannot force someone to be emotionally intelligent that’s just not possible. All you can do is influence them so when you

 

when you especially when you’re working with somebody who is an emotionally intelligent, especially in a leadership role, it doesn’t mean that you should in turn not be emotionally intelligent back. And I think that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes we make. it’s, it’s that conversation. ⁓ I have it with people all the time, right? Cause they’re like, this person did this or this person has doesn’t have the decency to say hello or, know, to connect. And my first question back is always,

 

DI (08:07)

It’s like, you know, the person, yeah, the person that you go past and you say, how are you? the person who actually goes past you and says, how are you? And before you’ve even had a chance to respond, they’re gone. I reckon their EQ is way down the Richter scale.

 

AMY (08:23)

I mean they’re ticking a box right? They’re going through it’s kind of like that automatic they say it they don’t mean it they they’re really they’re not even waiting for an answer and I think it’s it it also comes down to in that workplace we are functioning a lot on our conscious mind because we are just go go go we’re in an environment where it doesn’t seem anything

 

but acceptable to be busy and to be in a fast pace and to be rushed. So unfortunately we’re just, we’re not tapping into that subconscious mind as much as we could be and as much as we should be. And therefore that conscious mind, like the subconscious mind is where the emotional intelligence lives. So if we’re not tapping into that area of our mind, we’re just ticking boxes.

 

DI (09:11)

So what’s the correlation between being emotionally intelligent and being empathetic? Because I’d be interested to understand if the correlation is really close, ⁓ can you be at risk of being a soft touch or a pushover if you’re highly emotionally intelligent and too empathetic?

 

AMY (09:32)

So empathy is a part of emotional intelligence. I believe empathy is one of the greatest skills you can build. I really do. But empathy is exhausting. And I think to be empathetic in every single situation, it’s not realistic and it is exhausting. And like you said, Di, you can become a bit of a pushover. It’s that fine line between being liked and being respected.

 

So with that empathy, and I guess this comes to having a really good understanding of the difference between empathy and sympathy, because sympathy has that, even that level of pity or that bit of care where you’re going, wow, this is terrible. I really wish this wasn’t happening to this person and I feel for this person, where empathy is simply recognizing the emotion that the person is feeling and thinking.

 

When was the last time I felt that emotion? What is the best thing that somebody could possibly say to me rather than what is the worst thing? So I think some people that get caught in that empathy loop are actually in an empathy and sympathy loop where they are bringing a lot of that sympathy in because having fantastic empathy gives you the ability to be able to move forward and help to find solutions. Like how do we fix this? How do we move forward?

 

You’re not in your own head, you’re there to support them, but you’re actually there to support them to progress, not just to loop and loop and loop in that current state of mind.

 

DI (11:07)

So then on the flip side, and we’ve seen it happen where people with low EQ are in fact still the best person for the job, for whatever reason, or might be the last man standing in a selection process sometimes, which can be the case. yeah, so we see people with poor EQ get promoted anyway. What’s the impact on a culture when that happens?

 

AMY (11:24)

Peace!

 

It depends what role they’re in. I always like to say that if I was going in for brain surgery, I would want my surgeon to have lower levels of emotional intelligence.

 

Because when I’m in that situation and they are operating on my brain, I don’t want them to be thinking about Amy is the mother of two kids and she’s the wife of Mark. And I want them to be thinking about me as a vessel that they’re just going through that same motion that they do every day and really keeping focused on what they can do. But anytime you’re interacting with human beings when they’re awake, that emotional intelligence is going to create the relationships, right?

 

If you put aside those few really specific roles that ⁓ I guess look to the ability to be able to shut down your emotions, to be able to do it really well and look at the majority of other roles out there. When we get leaders and specifically CEOs in roles that lack emotional intelligence, we’re getting to the point now where people are just not willing to put up with it. People are walking because the culture is turning toxic.

 

DI (12:44)

More so now than generations before us, I think.

 

AMY (12:48)

definitely die and what I’m seeing more than anything now is that people have the genuine interest for emotional intelligence is continuing to rise and it will continue to rise especially with AI coming in but what I’m starting to notice now is that the more organizations that are providing emotional intelligence training for their teams it doesn’t just help them build their emotional intelligence but it also makes it really obvious then to them the people that

 

aren’t being emotionally intelligent. And I know there’s been a couple of times now where I’ve had, you know, CEOs or C-Sweeps that have said, no, no, we’re not going to do the training. We’ll just let everybody else do it because you know, we think they really. Yeah. And then all of a sudden the people walking out of these training and going, well, hang on a second. Like our CEO and our C-Sweep, they’re the ones that are lacking emotionally intelligence. They’re doing exactly what Amy said not to do.

 

DI (13:32)

They feel exposed.

 

AMY (13:46)

And it’s just through that lack of awareness, right? So I think that we are becoming that place that is less tolerant to people lacking emotional intelligence because we know that success is, it is that balance between EQ and IQ. You can’t have one without the other. You need that balance.

 

DI (14:07)

Yeah, but that example you just gave is interesting because they’ve chosen the C-suite, in this instance that you’ve just cited, has chosen not to turn up. So can you use EQ as a leverage in

 

managing an environment. So if you’re holding back and not giving and that’s your style, does that mean you have low EQ or can you in certain circumstances or certain settings choose simply not to display it?

 

AMY (14:49)

It comes down to being real, right? Exactly what you’re saying in that is what is true to your style. So if you have somebody who is quite, you know, quite an introverted person or, you know, talks only when they feel there’s something to say and, you know, they’re really respected for that, then I wouldn’t call that low emotional intelligence. I would say they know who they are and they know their comfort area and they add to the conversation when it’s relevant.

 

where if you’ve got somebody who is quite an extrovert and they’re sitting there and they’re choosing not to say anything and in their mind is just hundreds and hundreds of thoughts and disagreement and challenges in their mind and they’re choosing not to say anything, then that’s not emotionally intelligent. You’ve got to be real to who you are and you’ve got to make sure that what is coming out of your mouth, the actions that you’re doing is aligned to your mind. So people can see straight through that.

 

that kind of that false exterior, right? And this is why I’m having so many conversations at the moment around that toxic positivity and that being emotionally intelligent isn’t being positive every second of every day because that’s not what life is. It’s being real, being authentic. And that is how you build trust and build respect. So I think there are some incredible CEOs out there that choose to

 

sit back and choose to let people take the lead and, you know, choose to be more of that quiet background and they’re very emotionally intelligent people. But there’s also some other ones that choose to sit back and let them do the work that it’s not emotionally intelligent at all because it’s going against everything that they’re thinking, that they’re saying, that they’re supporting. So it’s going to impact the relationship. There’s no template, I guess, to aligning to being an emotionally intelligent.

 

DI (16:44)

So tell us about toxic positivity. How’s that playing out in the workplace? What are you seeing?

 

AMY (16:52)

we’re seeing is people that are coming in and just and not being real like they’re coming in and saying you know we need to pretend like every day is amazing like everything’s great you know something happens and you know we use the example in one of the situations where you’ve got a company who’s laying off 200 staff and going but everything’s fine like everything’s okay like let’s just get on let’s just be happy let’s like go no so it’s at that point where we’ve got to understand that

 

There’s no such thing as a good or bad emotion. There is an appropriateness of an emotion and a severity level. So in some instances, upset, anger, fear, that is the right emotion. you just got to… Appropriate. That’s right. Like you’ve just got to get the intensity or the severity level right. But what we’ve got some organizations coming in that don’t have fantastic cultures,

 

that are avoiding the difficult conversations that are avoiding the honesty and just sugarcoating it all with everything is amazing let’s just pretend everything’s happy and when these people are coming in and being this this fake positive what it’s turning into is a lack of trust a lack of respect it’s it’s people looking going well you’re not real that’s not realistic and i can’t relate to that so therefore i’m

 

I’m just not relating to you at all. And yeah, once you’ve lost trust in a work environment or in any relationship, it’s never going to end. Yeah.

 

DI (18:19)

It’s all over.

 

Yeah. Yeah. So let’s be honest, can you shift the dial on somebody’s EQ if it’s really at the bottom end of the spectrum?

 

AMY (18:32)

seen it happen on a few occasions. Again is it easy? No it really isn’t because it really needs a full makeover in your mind. Like we are talking you know habits and beliefs that you’ve had for so long that your mind is naturally going to defer to in situations. It’s about being able to change those.

 

This is a long-term commitment, right? And usually we see it happen when people hit a really ⁓ big moment in their life that’s had a big impact that really wakes them up to them realizing just how much of a, let’s say, poor or like it’s a person who is seriously lacking that ability to be able to connect to that the human being. So you hear stories about when people lose everything that they have built or

 

when people have got really sick or when something really devastating has happened in their life that has kind of jolted people out and they’ve realized that that deep embedded wiring in their mind is actually not the best way for them to be. So they put in the work to actually rewire. But when you’re looking at a workplace, I’ll go into sessions and we’ll run a session and at the end I’ll always provide feedback to say, this is my thoughts on the people that were at the session.

 

These people here have great emotional intelligence these people here really quite lack it But they’re aware of it and if they’re aware of it, then you can definitely help them to work on it But if they’re not aware of it You’re gonna need you’ve got a choice. Yeah, you’ve got to either accept them as they are knowing They are not going to improve and things are not going to change or you need to move them on It’s it’s a tough decision, but it’s it’s one or the other

 

DI (20:21)

So you and I have been talking for about 15 or 20 minutes. Can you tell from that whether I actually have whatever level of EQ?

 

AMY (20:35)

Yes, I can gauge. mean, I think that most of us can. I think even in those first couple of minutes when you start to speak to someone, I think you can straight away start to see the mindset that they’re in and their ability to be not in their own head. And I think that’s the biggest giveaway, right? When you can see that somebody is…

 

DI (20:40)

I’m stealing myself.

 

AMY (21:01)

listening to what you’re saying, they’re curious, you can tell by this conversation die that it’s not rattled off questions, it’s you listening to the answers and then taking the conversation in the direction that the answers are actually leading us. That’s the kind of display of emotional intelligence but I truly do believe that I don’t think there is such a thing as an emotionally intelligent person. I think that

 

in every situation we have a choice to make. either choose to respond in an emotionally intelligent way or we choose not to. And while this conversation I would say absolutely, I know that there are times when I enter into a conversation and my emotional brain takes over my logical brain and I could step back at the end and think, wow, I wasn’t very emotionally intelligent there. So I think it is that it’s that ability to be able to apply it in this situation.

 

But what is our biggest measure is that those times when we don’t get it right, it’s what we choose to do then. So in those moments when we step back and we say, okay, my emotional brain took over then, I wasn’t very logical, I didn’t respond in a great way, and I wasn’t emotionally intelligent, it’s having that ability to be able to go back to that person or go back to that conversation and say, you know what?

 

that didn’t go well, like I didn’t do well myself in that situation, can we try again? Or can we talk about this a little bit further? And just simply having the ability to apologize when we don’t get it right, that’s our true measure of emotional intelligence.

 

DI (22:40)

And sometimes going back and apologising may not be the right thing to do. The delivery that you intended that was hard-hitting and impactful and possibly negative was where you wanted to leave it. That’s not necessarily not being emotionally intelligent. That’s knowing when to apply it in what measure and when it’s appropriate.

 

AMY (22:55)

Absolutely.

 

DI (23:06)

I know and there will be people who will remember being on the receiving end of me doing just that.

 

AMY (23:11)

And that’s exactly right that’s coming back to that fake positivity right like that emotional intelligence at times is going to make people feel uncomfortable It is gonna make them squirm a little bit. It’s gonna be something they don’t want to hear But you know that they need to hear it You know that in that moment they’re gonna struggle and they’re gonna struggle a lot But you know an hour two hours a day a week later

 

they’re going to get what they needed out of that and that’s going to help them for the right reasons. We can only hope, ⁓

 

DI (23:43)

We hope.

 

Absolutely. So Amy, let’s come back in a moment and do a little mini masterclass on EQ if we could.

 

AMY (23:56)

Sounds great.

 

DI (23:59)

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.

 

So time for a bit of a ⁓ EQ master class. So grab a pen because Amy’s going to take us through some ideas here. So let’s say an individual’s been told that they lack EQ and you you might be resisting the urge to push back in whatever way about that. What’s the first step we could take to start building it up?

 

AMY (24:39)

The first thing we can do is just observe and start to be aware of the impact we’re having on the people around us. So really being able to look at those situations and take the moment to pause and just be observant, be present and see the reactions that you’re getting from other people is going to be really key to understand what it is that’s actually coming out, maybe not in the way that you intended it to.

 

or also to understand what is actually driving it. So where is it coming from? So it’s always going to be that pause moment and then kind of like, I guess it’s that reflection on yourself, right? Okay, what role did I just play in that situation? How did that person feel at the end of it? How did they respond? What is it that I triggered there? So it’s really, it’s starting to own who you are and the impact that you’re having on the people around you.

 

DI (25:34)

So I’ve observed that I wasn’t well received or I’ve observed that I’ve caused discomfort or upset or anger in the other person. So I’ve taken the pause. I’ve started to think it through. How do I then apply that in a more emotionally intelligent way? Is that the next step?

 

AMY (25:59)

Yep, absolutely. So it’s at this point that you get out of your own head, right? So once we understand, okay, what impact are we having? What is driving that? What are the values and beliefs that are driving it? Why am I reacting that way? Then it’s about getting out of your own head and realizing that this situation is not about me. So what is the best way that I can communicate with this person to help them get the best outcome or the outcome that they desire?

 

So this is at this point where, you know, if I use a difficult conversation, for example, when we head into a difficult conversation and we lack emotional intelligence, we are very much in that fear in our mind of the fear of conflict, the fear of unknown, how are they going to respond to me? And we kind of go into that conversation with that defense mechanism on ourself to make sure that we’re okay in the situation.

 

When we start to apply emotional intelligence and we go into a difficult conversation, we realize that the conversation is not about us at all. It’s about the person in front of us. So how can we speak? How can we communicate to the person in front of us based on their emotional feelings right now to get the right outcome? And what is the outcome that we desire?

 

Because when we lack emotional intelligence, a lot of the times when we enter into these interactions or conversations, the outcome that we tend to desire is to win and to be right. So in our head, if you’re in a conversation and you’re looking to win or you’re looking to be right, then you are not applying emotional intelligence. It’s at that point having the ability to be able to go, okay, this is not about

 

DI (27:27)

Hmm

 

AMY (27:41)

someone being right and wrong. This is not about a winner and a loser. This is about having a conversation so that we understand how we got here and what the future looks like. How do we move past this? What do we want this to look like in the future? So it’s really that communication is having the ability to be able to start recognizing other people’s emotions and think,

 

What is the best thing that I could possibly do interacting with this person to get them through this and get to the right outcome?

 

DI (28:14)

So am I seeking feedback as to how I’m going on my master class journey? Am I asking people what they think?

 

AMY (28:21)

Thinking feedback is an interesting one, right? Like I’m a huge advocate. You should always be looking for feedback. But I think my tip for everyone is be very careful in the way that you ask for feedback because these days I see a lot of people ask for feedback but don’t give people permission to truly give them feedback. It would be kind of like, you know, at the end of this session me saying to you, oh, that was great. I went well, didn’t I? How did you think I went? Did I do good?

 

You know what mean? giving permission for feedback. So yes, feedback.

 

DI (28:51)

That’s not taking feedback.

 

That’s words in your own mouth.

 

AMY (28:58)

And that’s me just saying, just want you to confirm my ego right now. That’s what I want you to do. So when you’re asking for feedback and the best thing you can possibly do to be vulnerable and to grow your emotional intelligence is to get that feedback. But you want to do it in a way that you give permission. So you want to really come in with that vulnerability to say,

 

know, die. I’m doing a lot of podcasts at the moment and I know that I’m not quite nailing them and I’m really working on improving them. Can you give me two tips on how you think I could do better for my next podcast? So that’s the difference between that compared to the first one. That is truly asking for feedback and seeking feedback as opposed to ticking a box and please stroke my ego so I can continue to do what I want to

 

DI (29:48)

Yeah, we see plenty of that. So have you seen ⁓ examples in the workplace without names? Could you give us some examples of where somebody who’s been out to shift the dial on their EQ for the better actually positively impact their career in some substantive way?

 

AMY (30:11)

Yeah, yeah, there is one person particularly that I’m thinking of. The first time I met him in a session, his ego was really, really quite evident. And you could see that he constantly needed to say something. It was kind of for that, for that very much that stroke of the ego, right? And I could even see the people around him that lacked respect for him because he really, he wasn’t welcoming any respect in a way.

 

I could see that he was quite a big personality. He was in a role that ⁓ traditionally kind of demands that level, but he’d taken it way too far. He’d been stuck in this role for quite a while and wasn’t quite understanding why. He wasn’t progressing as well. And it would have been watching him develop over, it would have been a good two to three years, but the first time that I…

 

The first time that I started to see the difference, it wasn’t in our first session, it was after he attended one of my sessions, I could see towards the end a little bit of a breakthrough, but it was at the second session and the part that hit home for him, even though we were focused on the workplace, he actually came up to me on one of the breaks and said, ⁓ my goodness, Amy, I have just realized how bad I am to my wife.

 

from an emotional intelligence. Crazy, right? That is what hit him. He straight away, he said it was like this and even the look on his face was just pure awareness and shock. He said, I have just realized what I’m doing to my wife and to my kids at home and the energy that I’m taking and the way that I’m speaking to them. And once he started to get that realization,

 

You could see the shift in the workplace as well. You could see the shift with everybody he worked with. it was like it still gives me goosebumps because it was incredible to see this person that had such a thick armor and a protection on and ego driven to just slowly unravel this. And he was he was so comfortable to be vulnerable in unwrapping it as well. Like he was quite vocal. I would get phone calls from him saying,

 

know, Amy, I just had to share this with you. I can’t believe it’s happened. And I’ve watched his career since just climb and climb and climb. And the respect level that his peers have for him now is incredible. He is a completely different man to who I met. But it’s always fascinating when it hits home first outside of work where we’re probably a little bit more raw and honest with the people that we love. And that’s where it became obvious for him.

 

DI (33:01)

And I know that, you know, the line of you can, we can teach you skill but we can’t employ somebody who’s outside of the fit for an organisation. Are you more inclined to put an emphasis on EQ or IQ in a talent acquisition setting?

 

AMY (33:24)

If I was in that talent acquisition setting, I would put a little bit more of a sway towards your EQ, but it would only be a slight sway. And I say that because I really do believe it’s the balance between IQ and EQ that we need in this world. I think that your EQ will only take you so far before you need some IQ to back it up. Your IQ also will take you so far before you need some EQ to back it up.

 

I am a big believer in there is a cultural fit for an organization and a cultural fit for a team. And that doesn’t mean a team of clones. It doesn’t mean bringing the same type of people together. It means getting the right balance and getting the different skill sets and getting the different belief, but it’s getting the right levels of emotional intelligence so that they can actively challenge each other.

 

effectively challenge each other that they can be honest that they can be vulnerable. So it’s getting that balance right and and for me that is it’s that ability to to apply your emotional intelligence in a situation and if you’ve got somebody coming into a team who does not have that ability it doesn’t matter how similar they are or how different they are it’s it’s not going to work.

 

Because human beings, number one way that we work is based on connection. And if you cannot create that connection with somebody, it’s not going to work.

 

DI (34:52)

So if we look out into the public arena today, I think we’ve got some pretty good examples of good and bad. Who would you call out as being exemplars of demonstrating great emotional intelligence?

 

AMY (35:07)

This one’s always a tough one, right? This one’s always a tough one.

 

DI (35:11)

I know the negative is easier to do because there’s plenty of that.

 

AMY (35:14)

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Look, I think there’s some people out there doing some incredible things and really showing great levels of emotional intelligence. If I don’t call out some specifics, I think if we look at industries in general, when we look at our politicians, we can tell the difference between those politicians that do show high levels of emotional intelligence versus those that don’t simply by the way that they speak.

 

DI (35:41)

Go

 

on, name me, I dare you.

 

AMY (35:44)

I’ve done it a long time ago. did it in an article and it created absolute chaos. didn’t play out well. But I think also if we start to look at even those people in public figures like those like celebrities and things like that as well. A celebrity that shows really high emotional intelligence and this is probably going to throw it out there a little bit for people as well.

 

If I look at someone who like Taylor Swift, right, who’s very much in the media at the moment, people either love her or hate her, but her ability to keep on doing what she’s doing and be able to kind of to take the emotions, to take the impact of other people and continue to go through and continue to have that care factor and never lose that level where, you know, she still introduces herself as high on Taylor just in case she didn’t know kind of thing.

 

That is showing that grounding, right? Where we find other celebrities out there that are, you know, those people that are like, you know, don’t you know who I am type thing. Like this is me, I should never need to introduce myself because everybody knows who I am. That totally lacks emotional intelligence.

 

DI (36:59)

Yeah and we see it in sportsmen, the people who you know walk off a tennis court and are happy to sign a signature and those who walk off and it’s like, no that’s beyond me.

 

AMY (37:09)

Yep, that’s and you see videos I was watching video there the day of you you’re saying about you say bolt and how he takes the time there’s one of the one of the tennis players to I don’t follow a lot of tennis but I know here at the moment

 

DI (37:24)

David

 

only recently smashed up a tennis racket but then we don’t necessarily know what the provocation’s been either.

 

AMY (37:32)

right? No, I’m more talking about it was a video of a really high level of emotional intelligence where you he was sharing the umbrella with the ball boy and is sitting down and having a conversation with the ball boy and you know that kind of thing that shows your high levels of emotional intelligence when you have the ability to do that. So in the sporting industry it’s very interesting because I think and this comes back to that area where

 

I really do believe that there’s no such thing as an emotionally intelligent person because you see in some sports people and in people in high profiles in one interview they can do really, really well. And then there could be a snippet that they caught off guard or another situation where we don’t understand the context, but it looks like they haven’t handled the situation that.

 

DI (38:21)

All in the post-production Amy, we can turn anything into something else with a little bit of a tweak.

 

AMY (38:27)

But that’s emotions right? when you don’t know what’s going on. It’s true. Emotions can be read so many different ways and when we don’t understand like you were saying, what is driving that? What’s building to that area? ⁓ We make some really big assumptions and it good.

 

DI (38:47)

Yeah, I mean we have a famous example here in Australia, I mean remember the Lindy Chamberlain case. She was judged in the court of public opinion as being guilty because her emotional display didn’t match what everybody wanted it to be.

 

AMY (39:02)

Exactly right. this is, ⁓ you know, I love this part of AI when people start to understand and realize that situations and people can’t make us feel a certain way. Like it is, you know, we react the way that we react based on the wiring in our mind. And that’s why, you know, you can grab 10 people from around the world, put them in a room and have the same thing happen to all of them. But you can have 10 different reactions. And that’s exactly right with Lindy Chamberlain, right?

 

because she didn’t have the default reaction that people were expecting straight away they said, well, she’s guilty, clearly she’s guilty. But we all respond different to situations based on our upbringing, experiences, our values and our beliefs and just how we process emotions. So those emotions can be taken and as you said, that’s where video editing works so well in the media and with reality TV shows, right? That’s why they get the rating.

 

DI (39:58)

Sure does. Yeah sure does. Hey can I just clarify you just said EI so we use the term EI and EQ. Yeah. Are they one in the same? Are they exactly the same?

 

AMY (40:12)

They’re not exactly the same. the difference between the two of them is emotional EQ is your emotional quotient. So it is your portion. Yeah, it’s the measure of your emotional intelligence where EI is the abbreviation for emotional intelligence. the two

 

DI (40:27)

Yeah

 

AMY (40:27)

Yeah,

 

the two are interchangeable. We understand what both of them mean. We know what both of them refer to. So I tend to use AI unless I’m talking about the actual measure of your emotional intelligence. But EQ, it’s well known. It aligns perfectly to IQ as well. So they’re both acceptable.

 

DI (40:47)

Got it. So let’s just as we come to a close today, if I can just pull this back a little closer to the power of women. We’re told women are naturally more empathetic and you know that’s biology and stereotype or is that really just a convenient excuse for men not to develop decent levels of EQ?

 

AMY (41:13)

it’s all of the above. I really do. think that the genetics in us, right, when you’re coming from emotional intelligence, sometimes you’ve got to do that.

 

DI (41:18)

That’s politically correct, Amy.

 

AMY (41:26)

I think it is a mixture for some people. think that there is definitely that genetics and that the world upbringing, right? And the acceptance that it’s always been that women can show more emotion and that they are the caregiver and you know, the role that we play and that it’s more acceptable for us to show emotions and less acceptable for men. I do believe that some men out there are absolutely using us as an excuse. ⁓ but I also think that there are some men out there that are

 

trapped behind that, they’re trapped behind that upbringing and the way they’ve been told or taught to react in situations. I’m seeing now though, I think we’re really breaking through this and even in the last five years, we are starting to see such a shift and it’s a positive shift. It’s a positive shift that people are talking more about emotions.

 

We’re being more honest, we’re being more upfront, we’re being more vulnerable. And I think that the men that are still sticking behind that masculinity and, you know, they don’t need to show emotions, they are starting to be called out and left behind. So I think we are going to continue.

 

DI (42:37)

I think that’s right.

 

In your opinion, what’s the most significant challenge women are facing and how can they use emotional intelligence to shift the dial?

 

AMY (42:50)

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that we are facing and we’ve been facing it for a while now is to be confident and comfortable in who we are, to be real. And when I look at the workplace, I think for so long women have, they’ve put success down to bringing in that masculinity, to be one of the boys, to act a certain way, to have a conversation a certain way, to go up against those that.

 

that gender ⁓ inequality that we’ve had. And I think our biggest challenge now is knowing that success in a workplace, it does not come in a blueprint. You do not have to look a certain way. You do not have to speak a certain way. You do not have to need to act a certain way. It is getting women to be truly comfortable and confident in who they are, to understand their wiring, to understand what makes them different, but also

 

know that that difference, it’s a superpower as long as you apply it the right way. So have that ability to just still be, still be connected with your emotions. It’s not a bad thing to show emotions in a workplace, but just make sure you’ve got control of them. So feel the emotions, face the emotions, but know how to move on and have that confidence that every emotion that is coming out, you are feeling it for a reason and be okay with that.

 

but just know how to control it and how to move forward and just be your amazing self. There’s so many incredible women out there that I see when they get promoted or go into a new role that feel like they have to change. And it’s like, no, you were promoted for a reason. That’s right. Don’t change who you are. They promote you because they want that person in there and you don’t need to look the same and act the same as everybody else around the table. Be yourself.

 

DI (44:35)

for a reason.

 

Yeah, love it. Amy, how does somebody find you if they want to connect and work on their EQ?

 

AMY (44:55)

onto my website that’s the best place to find me that’s amyjaggibson.com.au on there you’ll find an insights page that has so many articles videos podcasts radio TV all of that kind of stuff that will help you to start build it you’ll also find my two books on there as well or links to be able to purchase the books and find me on social media too I this may come as a shock to you but I love meeting people so

 

You know, the more people that reach out, the better. I do love a good chin wag.

 

DI (45:26)

Beautiful. Well, we’ll put all of those links into the show notes and in particular your website so that they can find you. ⁓ EQ showing emotional intelligence is probably sharing this episode with somebody who you think might just need a little poke in the ribs. That it could be ⁓ a subtle way of being emotionally intelligent and giving somebody a bit of a rev up. But thanks for joining us. Thanks for…

 

listening through to the end of this particular episode. We’re sort of changing the topics around a bit and curating the mix. So I’d love you to let us know is there something you want to hear more of and only the other week we had our first male guest on which was an emotionally intelligent decision on our behalf to say we’re not going to be just one-sided in talking to the women and in fact it all jokes aside it was

 

one of the most insightful ⁓ discussions I’ve had with a truly emotionally intelligent male who fully understands the impact of how women and men can work better together. Until next time.

Connect with Di:

Connect with Di on LinkedIn

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Contact Di

 

Find Amy Jacobson at:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-jacobson-emotional-intelligence/

Website https://amyjacobson.com.au/

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

 

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How To Reclaim Pleasure and Power in Midlife

How To Reclaim Pleasure and Power in Midlife

Midlife doesn’t have to mean burnout, invisibility, or decline. It can be the moment you reclaim your pleasure, power, and presence.

In this Power Of Women Podcast episode, I’m joined by Natty Frasca, Pleasure Coach, rebel rouser, and founder of The Feminine Rebellion. Together we unpack why so many high-achieving women feel unfulfilled despite “having it all,” and how the key to transformation lies in reconnecting with pleasure in all its forms.

From the neuroscience of pleasure to challenging the myths of aging, Natty shares why visibility is an act of rebellion, and how every woman can own the room she walks into. Not through performance, but through presence.

If you’ve ever felt numb, disconnected, or pressured to keep “holding it all together,” this conversation is the reminder that midlife isn’t your crisis ~ it’s your revolution.

 

We explore:

What pleasure really means beyond sex

Why aging is a superpower, not a decline

How visibility can transform your confidence and power

 

Natty said:

“Aging is our superpower.”

“Stop apologizing for wanting more.”

“The most powerful thing a midlife woman can do is trust herself so fiercely that she stops waiting for permission and just goes out to live the freaking life she wants to live.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

NATTY (00:00)

So I am Natty Frasca, rebel rouser, pleasure coach for midlife women. I’m obsessed with helping women live turned on lives. I’m a mom of three. I’m a total nerd, lover of science, pleasure and sisterhood, especially at this stage of our lives. I believe our age is our superpower. ⁓ And I believe that it’s time women stop playing small.

 

And I’m also the founder of the Feminine Rebellion.

 

DI (00:33)

I’m Di Gillett and this is the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievement of women from all walks of life. And this is your seat at the table. So hit follow and the subscribe button and make sure you are sure to be part of every bold, unfiltered, game-changing story we tell here at the Power of Women podcast.

 

Today my guest is Natty Frasca and she is a fierce advocate for midlife as your revolution. Joining me from Boston, she’s here to flip the script on aging, on success and what it really means to feel alive again. So where are we going to talk about the neuroscience of pleasure, reclaiming your power at any age and how to own every damn room you walk into. Natty Frasca.

 

Welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

NATTY (01:33)

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for having me here. It’s my absolute pleasure, and I mean that.

 

DI (01:40)

Nettie, for those who are just meeting you in my part of the world, all for my international followers, tell us a little about who you are.

 

NATTY (01:50)

Yeah, sure. So I’m the founder of the Feminine Rebellion. I am a coach for midlife women who look like they have it all on the outside, but feel little numb, burned out, or like something is missing. And I help these women unbind from all of the BS conditioning about

 

how women are supposed to behave, ⁓ who we should be and help them connect with their own pleasure, with power, with presence. ⁓ Yeah, I believe when a woman comes alive, she becomes completely unstoppable. And there’s a massive ripple effect to that. ⁓ It changes families, communities and the world. So I’m here for big things.

 

DI (02:43)

Fabulous. So could we start with just a little bit about your story? Because you were in the corporate world, married, three kids, beautiful home, successful career. But as I understand it, there was a pivot point for you because it didn’t all gel.

 

NATTY (03:01)

It didn’t all gel. was, it happened over a few years where I just started feeling really numb. I remember lying in bed and thinking, you know, there’s something off. Why aren’t I happy? I feel like I have all of this, you know, why aren’t I grateful for it? And there was actually quite a bit of shame and guilt attached to that.

 

I actually asked for a divorce at that time. I thought if I just burned down my marriage, ⁓ I would be free to do what I wanted. Well, it’s a we had been in couples therapy for years and it’s a really interesting story and this is probably like the pivot point for me. ⁓ We were in a couple therapy session and I just decided I wanted out and I wanted to kind of start a fresh life and

 

DI (03:41)

How did that go?

 

NATTY (04:00)

My therapist, our therapist said, so, you know, what do you want? And I said, you know, a condo in the center of town, someone to shovel my walkway, you know, a nanny and, you know, probably like a lover or two. And he laughed and he’s like, no, no, no, that’s not what I meant. ⁓ Let me ask it a different way, Natty. ⁓ How do you, how do you want to feel? How do you want to feel? And I was like, wait.

 

I don’t understand the question. How do I want to feel? I was completely stumped. you know, grew up in the youngest of three kids, Italian American family, very, you know, Catholic, really learned how to work hard, how to hustle, how to keep up with the boys. I never thought about how I wanted to feel.

 

⁓ But I paused and what came to me was a vision and it was this vision of myself at my kitchen counter stirring like a pot of my grandmother’s ragu. Jerry Garcia is on the radio. I’ve got three little kids. They’re dancing wildly and my husband comes up behind me, rests his beard on my neck, puts a glass of Cabernet next to me and like wraps his arms around my waist.

 

And I started to cry. And I was like, that’s, I described what I saw and I said, that’s how I want to feel. I want to feel seen, adored, taken care of, revered like a queen. I want to be the center of your universe. I want to feel. And it was, as I was saying those words, I was so, I was kind of embarrassed.

 

DI (05:46)

You felt how far you were from that?

 

NATTY (05:50)

Well, no, I was embarrassed because I thought of myself as this real hustle go-getter feminist.

 

DI (05:57)

And that’s not what you’re asking for. Yeah.

 

NATTY (06:00)

Yeah. And what I, when I paused and dropped in and thought about what I really wanted and it just came to me, it was the opposite of what I thought I wanted. You know, I had a high powered career. I was a, you know, it was like a Girl Scout leader. I was, you know, cooking organic meals from scratch and batching them in my, I mean, I was like,

 

Martha Stewart meets, I don’t know, whatever, you know.

 

DI (06:32)

On steroids. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

NATTY (06:34)

Yeah. And I like didn’t care about, you know, I was like, I can’t believe I actually, all I want is love. And all I want to do is slow down. And then that was like, cracked something open in me. And I thought I’ve been doing all of this wrong. And in that moment, my husband said to me, well, I can’t believe you’re saying this. Like, I want to give that to you, but you won’t let me.

 

DI (07:01)

way.

 

NATTY (07:03)

And I was like, what? And so that was the beginning of us kind of repairing our marriage. But really, it was the beginning of my own personal journey. That it was like, I don’t need to be so tough. I don’t need to be so fierce in that way only. I can also be like fiercely, I can be an advocate for myself.

 

And that, you know, wanting to slow down, wanting to be loved, wanting to be touched, wanting to be adored. So that was 10 years ago. Yeah. So it’s been a journey of unbecoming, unbinding from all of these narratives that I had inherited ⁓ and, you know, reclaiming pleasure for myself, for no one else, stopping people pleasing.

 

really becoming so beautifully selfish ⁓ and just coming alive. So that’s a long answer to your question.

 

DI (08:00)

Yeah.

 

And can I ask, did the marriage make it or did you?

 

NATTY (08:12)

Yes, my god, yes. Wow. Yeah, so we’re 23 years in.

 

DI (08:16)

congratulations. That’s pretty cool because you were right up against the glass of walking away by the sounds of it.

 

NATTY (08:24)

I had a lawyer. Yeah. I was, yeah, I was, I was ready to go and, you know, he said, let’s, you know, let’s, let’s try it a different way. And, you know, I don’t believe in sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and everything’s perfect. You know, it’s just, that’s bullshit as far as I’m concerned. So I’ve, ⁓ committed this marriage. We are friends. We have shit. Of course. Right.

 

DI (08:51)

Have a shit. Yeah.

 

NATTY (08:53)

I’ve coached hundreds of women and even ones who were happily married. You know, we all think about burning it down from moment to moment, to month. I mean, come on.

 

DI (09:10)

We do. I’m just about to hit 20 years and you know, right? You’d be lying if you said it was all good. That’s just not how the world works.

 

NATTY (09:20)

be lying. But this is the thing is that like people do lie and people do pretend. And that is what I’m here to help dismantle is that the more women that can actually tell the truth and show their cards and be honest.

 

about where they are in their lives, I mean, the stronger their collective becomes, right? We don’t have to do this work alone. It’s like we’ve been taught to pretend. We’ve been taught to like say, I’m fine. It’s all good. When on the inside, we’re dying. And that’s where it was 10 years ago. You know, everyone thought that I had it all.

 

DI (10:05)

So with the work you’re doing with high achieving women and them getting really honest with themselves, is there a common thread going around and the narrative of commonality or is it all unique?

 

NATTY (10:21)

It’s pretty common. It’s pretty common. It’s, it’s, I’ve checked every box, but I still feel empty. I miss feeling sexy and free and alive. I’m exhausted from holding it all together for everyone. ⁓ I want more, but I don’t even know what that looks like. They’re all carrying so much and

 

They’re terrified that wanting more makes them selfish or a bad person or ungrateful. ⁓ But they’re really craving a life where they feel fully themselves, where they feel purposeful, where they feel on fire, where they feel free. ⁓ So it’s really same, same.

 

DI (11:12)

Yeah and in terms of, mean I’m asking this almost knowing the answer but I’m often surprised. What is the common age where the wheels start to fall off?

 

NATTY (11:24)

45, 46 when they start to fall off. ⁓

 

50 when they decide something has to change. Yeah.

 

It’s like a magic moment. It’s I don’t know whether it’s like it’s just the halfway point. It’s a really clean line. But 50 just seems to be like a switch.

 

DI (11:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Sure is, but…

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk about pleasure because I know that’s one of your ⁓ big calling cards. Yeah. Why do so many women disconnect from it? What’s the reason?

 

NATTY (12:10)

Well, we live in a patriarchal society that has completely disconnected us from pleasure because we’re taught from a very early age

 

DI (12:21)

to

 

perform.

 

NATTY (12:24)

Yeah, exactly. To perform, to slap a smile on our face, to produce, to please everyone around us but ourselves. And those narratives, you I call it the patriarchal pathway. So, you know, it’s a very well-worn pathway for how a woman should be in the world, right? So you should do well in school.

 

You should dress like a lady, cross your legs. Notice my legs up on my desk. I’m actively rebelling. ⁓ You know, do well in school. ⁓ You know, level up in your career. Find a man to marry, have children, continue, you know, please take care of, be the epicenter of this family. Take care of everyone else. Be the emotional caregiver and the physical caregiver. And

 

You know, it doesn’t stop, right? We emotionally care give our male partners. you know, we just never have, has anyone taught us to be in touch with what we want or what turns us on, right? And

 

you know, when I talk about pleasure, people’s minds immediately go to the hypersexual. Yeah. But it isn’t just about sex. That’s one part of it. That’s one end of the spectrum. But really pleasures anything that lights you up, anything that engages your senses and makes you feel alive. It’s it’s dancing to your favorite music. It’s eating.

 

your lunch, you know, outside on your stoop in the sunshine, right? It’s deep belly laughs with like your sisterhood. It’s also maybe stillness in the forest. It’s so unique, right? But pleasure is also deep presence with yourself. It’s like the moment where you drop out of your head and into your body. And

 

you learn over time as you practice pleasure and you pump more of this into your life, you know, what turns you on? What are the things that make you feel alive? And then that way, becoming present to pleasure becomes super powerful because we can begin to shift. We can use it as a compass to kind of begin to shift our lives in that direction. And, ⁓ I you can start small,

 

But then, you know, I’m 10 years in and, you know, I’m like going dancing in Ibiza next month with a group of girlfriends, you know, I’m going to see a concert in Amsterdam in three months. it’s like I’m just can’t stop won’t stop because it feels so good.

 

DI (15:18)

Yeah.

 

So when you’ve got these women in the room that you’re coaching Natty and you ask them, do they have pleasure in their lives? What’s the answer? What are they saying?

 

NATTY (15:33)

⁓ Well, it’s a mix of answers mostly like know what is pleasure. I don’t know what you mean, you yeah

 

DI (15:39)

That’s what I thought it would be. Yeah. Because there would be a word that isn’t in their vocab.

 

NATTY (15:44)

Well, usually by the time people work with me, they followed me for a while. So they know a little bit about what I’m, what I’m saying. But if someone’s brand new to my world, there’s a little bit of education that’s happening. And, you know, oftentimes I’ll ask the question, what did you love to do when you were a kid? So, you know, maybe it’s, you know, playing in the woods, maybe it’s dancing and we look for ways to.

 

bring that back into the surface of their everyday lives. Right? If you love to dance when you were a kid, you know, go take up a shuttle lesson. You know, see if you can get that feeling back in your body. We’re the same person. Yeah. The things that turned us on at seven are going to turn us on at 57.

 

DI (16:30)

So for the woman listening who hasn’t tapped into that yet, what’s one small thing she could do to turn up the dial?

 

NATTY (16:40)

I love this. ⁓ One question I love for women to ask themselves regularly, and I would encourage your listeners to do this, is to take 60 seconds, take a deep breath, close your eyes, come into your body and ask yourself the question, what would feel really good right now?

 

It’s so simple. But when I’m feeling a little bit off or I know I need a break or I’m sitting at my desk too long and I say, you know, what would feel really good right now? ⁓ Sometimes it’s just like stretching on my yoga mat next to my desk. Sometimes it’s like hitting my favorite Spotify playlist. Sometimes it’s a hot bath or like I always have a hot cup of tea.

 

So starting to tune in. Your body is brilliant and she will respond. It could be as simple as go get a glass of water.

 

DI (17:49)

Yeah.

 

NATTY (17:50)

But just that one question.

 

DI (17:52)

Yeah, interesting. So coming up, let’s talk about redefining aging and visibility.

 

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.

 

So touching on aging, what’s the biggest misconception people have about it? How long have we got?

 

NATTY (18:19)

Yeah, this exactly. The biggest misconception is that aging is the decline, that it’s loss, that it’s, you know, irrelevance. It’s complete bullshit. Aging is our superpower. Yes. mean, aging is my wisdom, right? It’s my sharper boundaries. It’s giving fewer fucks about what other people think. It’s

 

you know, finally feeling free enough to just be yourself. mean, most of us are taught to dread aging, but I mean, I woke up, you know, at 40 and realized I’d been following these rules, all these rules that hadn’t made me happy and decided to stop being smaller, younger, quiet, you know, stop.

 

being the smaller version of myself and what I’ve realized now almost a decade later is all the fires I’ve walked through and that every single woman I’ve ever worked with has walked through. Like if you look back in your life and you look at all of the portals of transformation, like leaving people, changing jobs, know, moving house, raising children maybe, and like the hard crunchy moments, that is wisdom.

 

That is deep, deep wisdom. feel like I have never been smarter than I am or wiser than I am right now.

 

DI (19:50)

Yeah, he’s to that.

 

NATTY (19:52)

Yeah, and every woman I work with is so damn wise, so I’m just like, age, bring it on.

 

DI (20:00)

So you’ve come from the world of advertising. How much of that world hasn’t caught up? Because if I see another ad for an aged care home for saying women in their 50s look gray and finished, I mean…

 

NATTY (20:17)

I don’t know if we’re ever going to break free from that narrative, to be honest. mean, I think we’re in the middle of something right now that feels really powerful. This reclamation of the feminine, of feminine power, the reclamation of aging women, the reclamation of midlife. I mean, it’s in the water right now. And that’s fricking amazing.

 

DI (20:45)

I mean just jump on Instagram. It’s being shouted. I mean…

 

NATTY (20:49)

Yeah,

 

it is being shouted and I think it’s going to take us. Now it’s going to take more of us. that’s, you know, that’s one of the reasons why I do this work. It’s like the ripple effect of this work. The more women that I can work with, the more people I can connect with to, you know, show them, you know, the bullshit rules that we have been living under and how and to start disrupt them.

 

you know, the better off we all will be. But I mean, the beauty industry, let’s face it, it’s, I mean, how many billion dollar industry is it? You know, I haven’t looked it up recently, but it’s got to be in the hundreds of billions, right? Yeah. I think the most power that I have and anyone who has children, like I’ve got two daughters who are 21 and 20. And, you know, we just have these conversations all the time.

 

DI (21:44)

the men around you saying as they see what you’re doing and what you’re advocating? Are they on board? Are they challenged? What are they saying?

 

NATTY (21:54)

The people in my life are all about it. I mean, they are, you know, my fierce advocates. ⁓ My husband is a feminist. He is, you know, really at my back. ⁓ My dad, who is a 78 year old Italian American guy, thinks this is really fucking cool. And ⁓

 

You know, it gets a little uncomfortable when I use the word pussy. But, you know, but he’s on board. You know, I have two brothers, you know, I know they’re proud of me. ⁓ So and to be honest, I don’t have anyone in my life who isn’t on my side. I’m done with that. Yeah. Like the people in my life are

 

DI (22:44)

Yeah, they don’t need.

 

NATTY (22:53)

My kind of people.

 

DI (22:54)

Yeah, brilliant. So for women listening who might not feel that power yet and still pleasures and still feel the pressure that they have to toe the line, what’s a shift around redefining how they age appropriately? Because I mean, that’s a phrase we grew up with.

 

NATTY (23:19)

Yeah, I guess it would start by maybe asking yourself or even journaling on this question, like, what have I gained with age? Great question. Instead of counting their wrinkles, count your courage. Like, actually look back.

 

It’s a great practice because we’re survivors. Yep. We’re survivors. I mean, it’s just in our DNA.

 

DI (23:56)

And visibility is one of these huge topics that I think as the midlife woman approaches that certain age that they struggle with. I doubt that you struggle with visibility. It’s not one of my things that I struggle with, but I’m sure you’re talking to women every day who feel like they’re shrinking from view. How do you walk into a room

 

NATTY (24:21)

Yeah.

 

DI (24:25)

and really start to show up and change that narrative both literally and in your own mind.

 

NATTY (24:35)

I think when we think about visibility sometimes, or we think about owning a room, ⁓ we have a picture in our heads of a very masculine way of owning a room. owning a room in the way we’ve seen people own rooms before is this kind of power over idea, know, like, ⁓ yeah, kind of in an arrogant kind of way. And

 

Women, think, have a very special power, is that we can own a room just by our presence. We don’t need to jockey for position. It’s just being deeply present and walking into a space and feeling like I belong here, being grounded in your body, making eye contact.

 

speaking slowly, not trying to prove yourself, right? Letting your authenticity shine, your quirks, your humor, your wisdom, your truth. And there are some small shifts that women can make before walking into a room, taking a really deep breath, standing up straight.

 

rolling your shoulders back, you know, lifting your chest a little bit. And, you know, instead of thinking to yourself, I hope they like me. One question that I ask myself is, do I even like them?

 

DI (26:20)

Yeah, that’s gonna say flip the narrative. And the latter opens you up. The former shrinks you down physically.

 

NATTY (26:29)

Yeah, it does that the latter is curiosity, right? It’s like huh and thinking about like who in that room would I like to connect with? Mm-hmm instead of thinking they’re walking into a room of 30 people Who am I curious about? Yeah, and connect with that one human being

 

DI (26:46)

Yeah.

 

When did you walk into a room and really feel that sense of presence and that sense of groundedness? How old were you?

 

NATTY (27:01)

When I felt presence and groundedness, hmm. I think I rea- to be honest, I ha- I felt that way my whole life probably until I got into a boardroom.

 

And when I got into a boardroom, I thought to myself, I’m not smart enough to be here.

 

And I don’t know enough. I don’t know enough about financials. I can’t add anything to this conversation. And it’s actually regretfully ended up leaving that position ⁓ because of that. I think I mean, I told my son. Yeah. It’s man, do I regret that. But I just.

 

I do. mean, and that was probably, you know, 12 years ago. I think I was overwhelmed. had small kids. I told myself I couldn’t ⁓ handle the time commitment, but really it was me feeling like I didn’t belong.

 

You were invited there for a reason.

 

People want you there because of who you are and what you bring to the table. And we are so conditioned to believe that our worth is tied up with how many degrees we have or ⁓ what’s on your resume. But really, our power comes from how we think outside the box, how we connect with other human beings.

 

And in retrospect, I’m really great at those two things. And that’s probably why I was invited into the room.

 

DI (28:47)

Yeah, you missed the cue. Yeah. So I’m going to, I typically do a one bold question and answer to close, but Natty, I’m going to change it up a little bit with you because I think this is kind of your jam. So if we could do a couple of rapid fire responses, I would love your thoughts on three questions.

 

NATTY (28:50)

I miss the cube.

 

Okay, okay, let’s do it.

 

DI (29:17)

So what one rule midlife women should break immediately?

 

NATTY (29:22)

Stop apologizing for wanting more.

 

DI (29:26)

Love it. What brings you pleasure right now?

 

NATTY (29:31)

Dancing in my kitchen with my husband.

 

DI (29:35)

And if you could finish this sentence, the most powerful thing a midlife woman can do is…

 

NATTY (29:43)

Trust herself so fiercely that she stops waiting for permission and just goes out to live the freaking life she wants to live.

 

DI (29:56)

And there you have it. Natty, fantastic and you’re absolutely right, this village of women out there promoting midlife women, there’s plenty on my side of the globe and there’s plenty on your side of the globe. And we’ve got to get out there and shout from the rooftops because

 

We’ve got to change that narrative of the misconception of what midlife looks like. It’s a starting point, it’s not a finishing point.

 

NATTY (30:27)

Mmm, it is. It’s a launch pad. It’s a launch pad.

 

DI (30:32)

Absolutely. And I mean, you would have seen it where you are. I mean, it’s why there are so many 50 plus year old female entrepreneurs just burgeoning because we’re sick of following the rules. We finally understand what we’ve got to offer and we’ve got the confidence, the wisdom and the lived experience to get out there and do it.

 

NATTY (30:55)

We do, we do. Amen.

 

DI (30:59)

Amen. Brilliant. Nadi, an absolute delight to have you on the Power of Women podcast. It’s taken us a couple of goes to get there, but we finally have.

 

NATTY (31:11)

Thank

 

you for your patience.

 

DI (31:15)

⁓ you’re welcome. And I put it to anybody listening to today’s episode of ask yourself what is bringing you pleasure. Until next time.

 

Connect with Di:

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Find Natty Frasca at:

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Baring All: My Alopecia Story — Losing My Hair But Not My Identity

Baring All: My Alopecia Story — Losing My Hair But Not My Identity

What happens when the very thing you’ve always been known for, your appearance, suddenly changes?

In this solo episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, I share my raw and deeply personal journey with Alopecia totalis. When all my hair fell out, leaving me bald as a badger, as the saying goes.

What began as an identity-shattering experience of losing all my hair became one of the most defining lessons in resilience I’ve ever lived through. From brutal medical treatments and moments of despair, to unexpected acts of kindness and the courage to speak out, this chapter of my life reshaped not only who I am but also how I show up in the world.

This story starts in 1999, when out of the blue, I developed Alopecia totalis. For someone who had always been known for her long blonde hair, the slow, torturous process of watching it fall out strand by strand was devastating.

Western medicine offered little compassion and even fewer solutions. I endured thousands of cortisone injections, harsh treatments, and blunt words from specialists who saw me as a case rather than a person. None of this was done with any level of compassion or support. It was the most clinical, gut-wrenching experience.

Eventually, alternative therapies, Chinese herbal medicine, and a long journey of healing led to my hair regrowth.

However, this story isn’t just about alopecia. It’s about reclaiming power, resilience, and the courage to speak out. Lessons I now carry into every episode of the Power Of Women Podcast.

 

In this episode, we explore:

The emotional impact of Alopecia totalis and the identity shift it forced.

Why Western medicine wasn’t the answer for me, and the path toward alternative therapies.

The lowest moment of my journey — and how I pulled myself back.

Building a wig business to create solutions for myself and others.

The random act of kindness that still stays with me.

Lessons in resilience, self-worth, and speaking out to support others.

 

This is some of what I said:

“I am far more than how I look. I have the resilience to pull myself back from the darkest moment of my life.”

“If you have the courage to speak out about adversity to help others, that is something I cannot stress enough as being a fabulous thing to do.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the FULL TRANSCRIPT of this conversation here: 👉

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Di Gillett (00:08)

Hey, I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women Podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and experience of women from all walks of life. And today, since I launched the podcast some 18 months ago, I have put all my energy into sharing the stories of some truly incredible and amazing women.

 

But what I’ve realised is that I actually have a few powerful stories and lessons of my own to share that hopefully will inspire and support others. And I also want to give a shout out to Tori Archbold and thank her for the time we’ve spent together which has afforded me a bigger picture view of what’s next for Power of Women.

 

So the story I want to open up with today is one that I actually shared on all of my social platforms over the last couple of weeks. And that is when in 1999, out of the blue, I developed Alopecia totalis. Now I was defined by my looks. Sadly, I…

 

openly admit that. I had long blonde hair, lots of people would comment on it and give me positive feedback. It was my one crowning aspect of my character that I prided myself on. So what happened in 1999 and it was horrendous and it was this slow torturous experience that started

 

six months earlier where one day at the hairdressers they commented that I had a little bit of hair missing above my ears on both sides of my head. And that slowly became this increasing pattern of baldness that went from my ears to the top of my head over a period of six months. And it was identical

 

in the way it fell out on both sides of my head. So it was following this very distinct pattern. Getting in the shower each morning and looking down on the shower floor and seeing loads and loads of my prized blonde hair on the shower floor was absolutely gutting. And I can remember going to a particular

 

dermatologist in the CBD where I was living at the time, my first question was, am I going to lose all my hair? And he very bluntly, without any sugar coating, said, probably. And then proceeded in that particular visit to his clinic to inject up to 2,000 cortisone needles into my rapidly balding head.

 

was agonizing and I can remember saying to him I can hear the needles actually piercing the skin. You could hear that pop where that syringe was actually breaking through the surface of the skin and I pointed that out to this practitioner and he said I’m sorry the needles probably got blunt where we’ve hit the scalp.

 

None of this was done with any level of compassion or support. It was the most clinical gut-wrenching experience. And I had walked out of my office to come to this appointment. And I remember jumping on a tram to take the ride back to the office and my head was spinning. I’d just been told all of my hair was going to fall out. I’d just had this agonizing treatment that was delivered in the most brutal manner.

 

And the messaging from this specialist was beyond words. So then various journeys, I started to think, what am I going to do? And I kept down the Western medicine path, which saw me land at the clinic, another clinic in my hometown of probably one of Australia’s preeminent dermatologists. And that was a really short-lived relationship. And it was

 

One that ended in a manner which is not uncommon with me if I find something doesn’t fit with my beliefs or my ideas or my values, I speak out and I speak out in a direct and blunt manner. So I started to visit this second specialist who was also a dermatologist and in the world of hair loss there’s a whole lot of other sub-specialists that branch off, trichologists and all sorts of things.

 

and that had been an unsuccessful journey. So I’m at the rooms of this second dermatologist and his process was similar to the first. Inject you with cortisone and then he would apply this acidic tincture to my nail balding scalp and put you under this heat lamp for an intense period in what was for all intents and purposes a celerium.

 

And after the third session with this preeminent dermatologist, I said to him, I think your whole process is deeply flawed. And here’s my reasons why. You’re injecting me with cortisone, and cortisone is going to cause pits in my bones and irreparable damage. You’re putting this acidic tincture on my head and then putting me under a heat lamp, which there is no doubt over time is going to give me skin cancer.

 

So I’m beginning to get suspicious about, know, this is a lifelong engagement until I have no life left with these specialists because one cure causes something else. And his delivery of that was, well, if you don’t believe what I’m doing, don’t bother coming back. I won’t say on this podcast quite what my direct response with it because it is packed full of expletives, but suffice to say you could not have

 

me to walk back through his doors for another appointment ever again. So then I thought I don’t know what I’m going to do. By this stage I am nearly bald. Nearly bald. I’m starting to wear bandanas. I’m starting to explore what to do with wigs. And at the same time I thought I need to start to look beyond Australia for a cure because I couldn’t find anything here.

 

And I started to do some research and look at international marketplaces. It seemed at the time that Princess Caroline of Monaco was tackling a similar issue that she wasn’t overly public about, but I’d found a few threads. And keep in mind in 1999, the internet certainly wasn’t the resource tool that it is today and chat GPT did not exist.

 

So I kept looking at alternative medicine. My biggest problem with Western medicine was that the whole approach to treating this hair loss, which had been termed alopecia totalis, because I was now losing my eyelashes, my eyebrows, all of the hair on my body, which in some respects was a great thing, in other respects was just a nightmare, was that the Western medicine approach to this was to treat

 

the condition on the surface to treat the after the event where clearly something in my system or in my life or in my surroundings had actually caused this and Western medicine had no interest in that. So the journey went on and I went to naturopaths and all sorts of things and I had some horrendous experiences along the way.

 

And some of those were I was now close to bald with just a small amount of hair at the top of my head, which if I wore a bandana, allowed me to have sort of some thinning strands down the side of my bandana, which kind of didn’t necessarily announce to the world that I was completely bald. So with my corporate suits going into a CBD office every day,

 

I integrated a bandana into part of my look. The problem with doing that though was in going and pitching for business and I was in the recruitment and search space was that when you’re trying to pitch for business with clients that might be a particular campaign that was going to last for months and months and months, you could see it all over the client’s face that they had some reticence around engaging you.

 

because they actually didn’t know whether you were going to be around for that many months because the assumption of hair loss was immediately cancer. So I realised there and then that I had to actually share what I was going through openly, otherwise the commercial fallout of that was going to impact my financial future. And whilst I was in a relationship at the time,

 

There was no financial support from that relationship and long story short, that relationship which was loaded with coercive control was probably one of the many causal factors that actually kicked off this alopecia totalis which falls into the autoimmune family. I had to show up my financial future and I can remember some

 

really awful experiences. went to a client meeting one side of town on a particular windy day with my bandana on and I decided to walk back to the office which was probably, I don’t know, about five city blocks across town. Windy day, roaring north wind and halfway back heading back for another meeting at my office, my bandana flew off.

 

And here I am stuck in the middle of the city in a bright red suit which in its own right stood out. My bandana had blown off and I am standing there with a few bloody strands of hair blowing in the wind and I was absolutely gutted. And I remember walking past a particular shop in the city which was the tie rack which specialised in men’s ties and

 

and all sorts of scarves. And the woman, when I was walking past the front of the store, saw me and beckoned me to come in. And she had realized what was happening. And she offered me a bandana. And she tied it on my head, wouldn’t let me pay for it, and set me on my way back to my office. And that

 

a bit like an episode that I’m also releasing this week with Hannah Asafiri was my own personal experience of a random act of kindness that has stuck with me for years. So my balding journey is continuing and I am now down to literally a 20 cent piece circle of hair left on the top of my head.

 

which at this stage is still long. hadn’t brought myself to be able to do anything with it other than to hang on to it for dear life. And I can remember making the decision to shave that bit off with my then partner’s home shaver because he had a number one blade. And whilst it was one single sweep of the shaver to take it off, it was the…

 

most challenging thing to do and probably took me 20 minutes to actually take that one sweep and shave it off. Another thing that had happened before I had done that, the company that I was with required us all to go to Sydney for a promotional tour where my business was partnering with the global brand Monster.

 

as a promotional campaign and I remember it required us to walk around Sydney CBD literally wearing sandwich boards promoting the launch of Monster. It was September and it was blowing a gale in Sydney and I now have it embedded in my brain that September is the windiest month of the year in Australia and it was similar to that experience of losing my bandana.

 

between meetings previously where walking around the city literally with people looking at you because you’re walking around with this sandwich board on as a walking billboard, wearing a bandana, looking like I was on my last legs, it was probably one of the most horrendous tasks at that point in time to be asked to do.

 

And we also had a black tie event with the company on the final evening of our billboard walking. And I backed out of that because I just couldn’t work out how to front up to this black tie event and make a bandana work and make it work in terms of presenting me as a perfectionist as I wanted to present. So we come back to Melbourne after that Sydney visit and two days after

 

I’m on my way to the office. My then partner was driving me to work that morning. And I said to him, I can’t go in. I’m going to ring them and tell them I just can’t go in. And so I made a phone call into the office and spoke to my then line manager who said to me, why aren’t you coping? The bluntness of his reaction of aren’t I coping with losing my hair, going bald, can’t find a cure.

 

just gutted me. And I went back home. My then partner went off to work and I was home alone and I had to say I hit probably the darkest moment of my life. And I actually seriously contemplated not staying around. I seriously contemplated my own demise. And I sat with that for a few hours.

 

And in sitting with that for a few hours and writing down on it, not in a journal at that point in time, but on a piece of paper, I did two columns. What I couldn’t cope with and another column, what could I change? I couldn’t cope with how I looked. I couldn’t cope with how I felt. And I couldn’t cope with the fact that I couldn’t find a cure. And I also couldn’t cope

 

with the fact that I couldn’t find any wigs that fitted me and that was a big part of not being able to control how I looked. On the right hand side of what I could control, I could control speaking out about what I was feeling rather than hiding it. I could, if I put my skills and my network to the test,

 

solve or start to work on a solution for wigs, if I actually started to develop my own wigs that would fit my particularly small head, which was the issue with wigs in the marketplace at that time. And as such, I could then control how I face the world. So the right-hand column won out and

 

I set about starting a small wig business, not really from a commercial venture, more from my own personal use. Albeit I sold and gave away a few to other people that I started to come into contact with through what was an alopecia network within my home state. I also started to advocate for people, particularly children struggling with alopecia because I found that I had a voice

 

that I could speak out about it and talk publicly rather than hiding behind what was happening to me. And I found strength in that and I could share that strength with kids because kids going through an alopecia journey, be it partial or total baldness, in the schoolyard found themselves in a very difficult place. And the schoolyard, as we know, is somewhere where bullying is rife.

 

And for somebody with any points of difference or something that made them look strange or look odd, made them a target for bullying. So I started to do some work there. The other thing I started to do was I thought I could do more than just talk about this. I could put pen to paper and start to write a book. And my working title for the book was Bulled as a Badger. And I

 

did garner the interest of two publishing houses. And I started that book, but I have to say regrettably, I never finished it. And maybe that’s something in my unfinished journey again. So I’m still exploring cures. I’m now completely bald. I can’t find a cure. And a friend, in fact, the wife of a friend of mine,

 

coercive controlling partner suggested that rather than look internationally and do all of this exploring that I was doing, she recommended a very alternative therapist who she put a lot of trust in that was in my hometown in Melbourne. So I made an appointment and drove down to this particular clinic.

 

And I can never forget walking in the door. was this very rudimentary clinic, in almost a semi-industrial part of Melbourne. And it had a pale blue facade. And the place was called Inerchi and the practitioner was Doug Davies. And in those days, my attire, my work attire was corporate suits and stiletto heels.

 

And I remember walking into the doors to this very alternative clinic where on the right was a counter and behind that counter was just jars and jars and jars of Chinese medicinal herbs. And on the left was the waiting room and everybody in the waiting room was sitting with their shoes off that they had put on this rack just inside the door. And those shoes were primarily Birkenstocks and all varieties of flat shoes. And the only pair of Louboutin

 

high heels on that rack were mine. And I hadn’t met Doug at this stage and he walked out to his next appointment, which was me, and he looked at the shoe rack and he looked around and saw me sitting there in a corporate suit and said, Diane, I said yes. And that started the beginning of an incredible relationship with Doug and a two to two and a half year journey of twists and turns that

 

resulted in me opening my eyes, embracing very alternative therapies and meditation and yoga and a journey with Chinese herbs and custom-made tinctures that over the course of two and a half years got the most amazing result of getting my hair back. Now it wasn’t a linear journey. There were fits and starts. It would start to grow back. It would fall out.

 

Heartbreaking. Get back on track again, start to grow, we change the medicines. And if anybody’s done Chinese herbal medicine, when somebody asks you to boil these Chinese herbs up into a tea, you know it makes the residents that you might be sharing with anybody else absolutely unlivable because the pungent smell of the tea is unforgettable. And it also takes time. So I’d said to Doug, look,

 

This whole process is adding more stress into my world when stress is part of my problem. And I need a different solution. I need you to grind these herbs down and turn them into capsules that I can swallow instead of boiling the teas. And he said to me, that’ll take more time. I said, I appreciate that. That I am prepared to acknowledge, but it is the only way I can integrate this ⁓

 

Process that I’m going through with you into my life without it becoming another part of the problem Which big ticket was probably stress from relationships stress from work stress from being a perfectionist Poor blood flow from having broken my back in a skiing accident many years prior All of these things were an amalgam of things that had my body stiffen up that the net result was Blood flow was compromised to my head

 

that ultimately led to the hair loss. Now whether in fact my hair loss was an autoimmune disorder, which I actually really question, and whether it was more these causal effects that had caused stress in my body to stiffen and in fact compromise blood flow, which I actually think was more to the point. Through that time, I referred many other

 

Women in particular who had suffered hair loss, some who had been bald for over 20 years, I referred them to Doug and they started their own amazing journeys of recovery. And one of the proudest moments was leading into Doug Davies finally retiring some, I think probably 10 years ago now, was when they reached out and asked me to write a testimonial for a book that was being written as part of his… ⁓

 

retirement exit and sitting down and putting a small testimonial to paper that was reflective of this journey was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to put to paper because it had all of those emotions flooding back up and that was probably the first time that I had revisited that story for about 10 years. But I do want to say what this particular journey which

 

covered the period of 1999 to 2004 where I was just coming into, for the first time, having a full head of short hair when I met my husband George Danekian at a best friend’s wedding. And I remember going on a walk along the beach with George as one of our first dates. And it was the first time I had walked along the waterfront not afraid

 

of the wind either blowing off my bandana or my wig for the first time in four years. And I can’t tell you how impactful, it’s making me emotional talking about it, how impactful that was to actually take that walk along the beach without fear of being exposed literally. So that four year journey taught me that I am in fact

 

more than how I look because over that four-year journey I was headhunted twice for significant roles in the recruitment and search space. I also learned that I had the resilience to pull myself back from the darkest moment of my life and identify what I had to live for. And I also identified that I had the courage to speak out publicly

 

about what I was experiencing as a means of helping others and that was probably one of the most important learnings of all. One of my failures though out of this was I did say at the time when I’d started to get my hair back that I would never be defined by my hair ever again. Well for those who know what I look like today and it’s now 2025

 

You would have to say I probably never been more defined by my hair in any other point in time in my life than I am today because it is the first statement that probably people notice about me when I walk through the door. So that’s a failure. However, what I am never fazed by is the fact that at any day when my hairdo doesn’t work, I don’t call that a bad hair day because when you have had a hair day,

 

bad hair day that is actually losing your hair, that changes the benchmark for what a bad hair day is. So I don’t have any bad hair days. So if I can leave you with those three lessons about what I really felt were the most impactful, I am more than I look. I am far more than what I look like. That I have the resilience to pull myself back from my darkest moments.

 

and I believe you do too, and that if you have the courage to speak out about adversity and things that you’ve experienced in your life to help others, to really help others get back on their journey to recovery, whatever that journey might be, that is something I cannot stress enough as being a fabulous thing to do. So.

 

I am going to do more episodes at the Power of Women that are solo episodes because I think I do have some stories to share, not all out of adversity, but stories to share that hopefully might inspire others in the same way as some of the incredible stories that I am privileged to share with you through the podcast interviews with the amazing women that I’m bringing to the table and giving a platform through the Power of Women podcast.

 

I’m going to do the same with just a few more stories like this where I speak to you one on one. I hope it resonated. I hope it’s helpful. Until next time.

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She’s a Champion of Women and a True Visionary For Societal Change

She’s a Champion of Women and a True Visionary For Societal Change

She is Hana Assafiri.

What does it mean to turn adversity into purpose? In this episode of the Power Of Women Podcast, I sit down with Hana Assafiri OAM — activist, entrepreneur, and founder of the Moroccan Soup Bar. She is a relentless champion of women and a true visionary advocating for societal change. And her life story is a testament to resilience, defiance, and the audacity to seek freedom.

Born to Lebanese and Moroccan parents, Hana’s upbringing stretched between Australia and Lebanon. At just 15, she was forced into an arranged marriage, confronting both personal violence and systemic failures. Her story is not one of victimhood but of refusing to be defined by it.

Hana reveals how the small kindnesses of strangers, a shop assistant who treated her with dignity, a teacher who cared, shaped her path forward. Those acts of humanity became the seeds of her own mission: to create spaces of safety, dignity, and empowerment for women.

The Moroccan Soup Bar, founded in 1998, is one of those spaces. What began as a kitchen staffed by women seeking refuge has evolved into a model of community, employment, and healing.

Her recently published memoir, The Audacity to Be Free, expands on these themes, challenging us to rethink freedom, gender roles, and the role men must play as allies in addressing violence. Hana is unflinching: “The solution must be driven by women, supported by men.”

 

In this episode, we explore:

The meaning of life and freedom beyond survival

Cultural expectations, arranged marriage, and systemic failures

Acts of kindness that can change the course of a life

 

As Hana explains:

“Life doesn’t come with a trigger warning.”

“Women don’t need pity and charity. What they need is pathways and opportunities.”

 

💥 New episodes drop every Monday to power your week.

📖 Read the full transcript of this conversation here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

HANA (00:00)

Hi, Hannah Asafiri. What am I defining in the three or four rapid fire points? The meaning for life, I think, maybe I’ll start there, for me is whatever setting in whatever capacity that you leave those circumstances in a somewhat better predicament than when you found them. And that is, I guess, my foundational value for life, whether I find myself

 

⁓ one-on-one with individuals in social settings, advocating and or speaking to politicians, parliamentarians or the king or queen. That ultimately what drives me and what gives my life meaning is that. And sadly, we’re living in a world where ⁓ those tensions are much more real and require in us to take greater risks and responsibilities in preserving the very values.

 

that can ensure a better kind of fairer world. ⁓ And as women, think, which is the other layer, ⁓ being mindful of the profound inequality and the spaces that women have to navigate, also with it comes the opportunity for us to rethink how ⁓ better outcomes are possible through women’s contribution. So in a sense, the hope

 

for me ⁓ is what defines me and that is that the world can be better, kinder, fairer, more humane.

 

DI (01:37)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, the resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. But today we’re going to ask somewhat a deeper question. What does it mean to be free? And that is something that so many of us literally take for granted. Or is it something more

 

that we need to explore around that? Is it the power to build a sanctuary for others, even if you had to burn your own world down to escape? This is a story of a woman who was told to be silent, to make herself small and to fit into a world that had no room for her spirit. It’s the story of Hannah Asafiri. In Melbourne, Australia, that name is spoken with a reverence usually

 

save for community heroes and culinary legends. But before she was a celebrated activist and a radical entrepreneur, she was a girl trapped in a cage not of her own making. Today’s guest knows exactly what it takes to find freedom, not just for herself but for countless others. Hannah Asafiri, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

 

HANA (02:59)

Dear Lord, thank you, Di, and thank you for that amazing introduction. Gosh, I think I can leave now and that kind of sums it up. I’ll just not disappoint going further, but yes.

 

DI (03:11)

Well, I think the introduction deserves a bit of a deep dive because there’s one hell of a story behind that. So, but before we begin, could I just want to say when we spoke off air and I said to you, do we need to do a trigger warning about anything that we are going to talk about today? I’m going to pause there because your response, I think, says it all. Because You said to me,

 

life doesn’t come with a trigger warning.

 

HANA (03:44)

And it doesn’t. And sadly, for many in the main, women and girls and children, and this is commonplace, that these conversations, ⁓ it is really sad. They don’t come with trigger warnings. and yet they are so pervasive. They’re a common experience for many of us. That said, it is important, I think, for people to know that there’s support, there’s help, that these are conversations that

 

⁓ don’t and are not afforded the appropriate spaces to talk about them, that we keep them hidden and we keep the responsibility and the onus on those who endure violence and abuse and trauma and leave them to their own devices or therapy or whatever it is. But as a society, we don’t talk about them effectively. And if and when we do, we

 

cotton wool them with trigger warnings and if you want to leave, leave the room. Well, life isn’t like that sadly. And that way of discussing these issues I don’t think is making inroads into changing attitudes and the very drivers of these attitudes. We need to be able to talk about them matter of fact. We need to be able to talk about them honestly and shift the shame, isolation, humiliation,

 

that those who endure ⁓ feel and place it where it belongs and it is with those who perpetrate these acts. ⁓ so, yes, I come back to, of course, life doesn’t give you trigger warnings, but also let’s ⁓ reimagine how we as those of us who’ve lived life ⁓ can respond and have this conversation and define how we talk about it.

 

DI (05:19)

mmm

 

Yeah, thank you. Could we start with your story and delve into some of that today, Hannah? What was it like growing up where tradition and culture often overshadowed your spirit?

 

HANA (05:54)

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s tradition and culture. think often times spirited children find themselves restricted by the conventions and the environments that they find themselves in.

 

DI (06:12)

she’s got nothing to do with that. That could be any of us.

 

HANA (06:14)

That’s right. ⁓ I think, you know, importantly, especially if you’re a young girl and then growing up to be a woman in a society that’s got clearly defined roles and, you know, you’ve got your predictable pathway to how, what you should aspire to and ⁓ marriage and children and all of that sort of stuff. And I think anything that exists outside of that is quickly tamed.

 

and dissuaded, we’re often dissuaded from, you know, the hair being camped, just having an honest expression of who you are. ⁓ And yes, with that, obviously different cultures have their own traditions and rituals that further contain, absolutely. So for me, growing up in a culture,

 

DI (06:50)

I’m out of here Hannah.

 

HANA (07:09)

initially in Australia, but then we moved, my mother’s Lebanese, my father’s Moroccan, we then moved to Lebanon for a time and it was during wars and ⁓ really high-stakes settings, but the contrast between Australia and Lebanon in the gendered roles and the expectations of women and girls was for me really confronting. ⁓

 

necessarily restricting ⁓ more the hypocrisy of the expectations. it? ⁓ Probably neither. think I was curious about who makes the rules about these. It was absurd. I think more than, there was an absurdity about men and boys moving in public spaces only.

 

DI (07:43)

confusing.

 

or confronting.

 

HANA (08:03)

and women being relegated to the domesticity of kitchens and houses and salons and whatever. And whilst in and of itself maybe to a child that would have been okay, but where it wasn’t okay is I was then expected to move in men and boys spaces to go and bring the food from the grocery store, get the bread and yet denied everything that came with it and all the freedoms that came with it. And I think that

 

then became my training ground for really pushing back a little bit and really formulating my identity around questioning why things the way they are, who makes these rules, because they were absurd. just were nonsensical. So it was more that.

 

DI (08:52)

Yet you found yourself, as I understand it, in an arranged marriage despite the fact that you had this strong sense of what was fair for the guys and not fair for the girls.

 

HANA (09:06)

So yes, arranged marriages and I think this is where I guess when, so we moved from Lebanon back to Australia and ⁓ in that space ⁓ my mother did not integrate and certainly back then, I’m talking 40 years ago, 50 years ago even, the integration of communities and cultures was not as sophisticated as it is now and still now it’s quite inadequate.

 

But back then, it was worse. So mum lived inside the four walls of the home and became more and more depressed and more and more isolated, more and more, and her sense of marginalization and understanding of the world was limited to the four walls. And from that space, I go back to she did her best in her care.

 

⁓ Sadly, part of ⁓ her way of extending care ⁓ was to go back to what she knew, and that is to organise and arrange a marriage for her children. But again, later we can talk about that if or if not. ⁓ The conditions around which I was married were ⁓ very difficult. They were a consequence of sexual abuse.

 

And the only way in her isolation, my mother knew how to deal with the reputational damage, what that would mean for my other siblings in young girls being marriageable or otherwise. So like many cultures and traditions, sweeping under the carpet, getting rid of the problem, marry her off. And I think whilst

 

Now I understand and certainly forgive. It wasn’t okay for the little girl that was me and nor is it okay for many others. I also think where these circumstances were allowed to happen, I was married at 15 in Australia.

 

And Australia allowed it at the time, again, because we find ourselves wanting to be culturally sensitive, wanting to ⁓ embrace different cultures. But when that approach lacks a gendered understanding, we then default to going to the men, hey, what are your issues? How do you, what is it that you need to feel that you belong in Australia? And all these…

 

DI (11:38)

Hmm

 

become complicit as a country.

 

HANA (11:53)

And the people that are defining those cultures, of course they’re going to define them from their perspective and from their privileges. So as men who have been the ones that are consulted over the years, they have said, well, you know, our culture requires that we are allowed to marry our children young, provided there’s guardian consent, et cetera, et cetera.

 

Governments, whilst well-meaning, and societies, whilst their endeavor is to ⁓ be inclusive, I think those issues, unless they’re informed by the intersectional experience of women, and unless women contribute to what defines those cultures, then in the end they land on the bodies, sadly, of women and children who

 

deal with the impact and consequences of the layered, for lack of a better word, misogyny, the layered ⁓ societal issues that we have to navigate. And I think for me, I try to understand many years later my arranged marriage within that context, instead of just blaming my mother or the government for allowing it, or the Imam for marrying us, or whatever it is. ⁓

 

And I think it’s actually freeing when we can understand our place in the world and begin to agitate for change so that others don’t have to endure.

 

DI (13:31)

What happened between the relationship between you and your mother early on? it, was that a point of friction?

 

HANA (13:39)

Absolutely not. And you know, sadly, I loved my mother dearly and dearly. We’d never had a fight our entire life. And the level of empathy was probably too close even. ⁓ And we as children, probably like many children of migrants, we become the adults. We become the doctors, the interpreters, the translators.

 

DI (14:04)

All the things that care

 

HANA (14:05)

That’s

 

right. And because especially that they can’t move freely in society, we then take on that role. And in that role, you’re not allowed to be a kid. In fact, you can’t be a kid. with mum, interestingly, she now passed. But I’ve always had this thing that, you know, she did her best, she loved us, she, in her own understanding of the world.

 

and simultaneously holding the experience that it wasn’t good enough, that ⁓ as a young girl who was hurt and harmed by some of those decisions, and then how do we, if we arrive at that place, how do we forgive?

 

DI (14:52)

You’d built a strength of character though as a young girl in Lebanon being frustrated for want of any other word of seeing what was the gender difference of what the boys could do versus what you could do. How did you then bring that strength of character and perhaps view of injustice into an arranged marriage and actually

 

Were you again diminished or did you find your voice in the marriage early?

 

HANA (15:27)

Well, sadly, the marriage was profoundly violent from the very outset, in fact, from the wedding night. And I did write about it and was mindful in writing about it also not to associate arranged marriages with violent marriages. I think there is a distinct difference. Some arranged marriages can be good.

 

And some, obviously, marriages that aren’t arranged are also violent. So I don’t think the issue is arranged marriages per se. And yet this guy, I mean, there was absolutely nothing in common. We had no compatibility. was somebody who, you know, we started by saying, I ask why, why is the world the way it is? Why isn’t it better?

 

and his mode of, know, was about it’s my way or the highway. And I was never, for many reasons, I was never going to be the person that just thought, well, that’s okay, it’s your way. And I was young and I was 15, he was years older than me. So communication was just not at all. ⁓ And his mode of…

 

communicating and relating was extraordinarily violent at every turn.

 

DI (16:58)

And you would have had any life skills to deal with that at that age?

 

HANA (17:01)

None. And on top of it, you know, we’re Muslim, raised Muslim, and I think I was one of the first Muslim young women in Australia who was really pushing back and seeking a divorce. In fact, I called my mum the night of my wedding after the initial act of slap across the face and said, get me out of here. What is this? no, no, no, no, we can’t. And what will people say in that hole?

 

And you know, you then become exposed to culture again, this culture that’s defined by somebody obscure that says, you must remain, you must endure, you must persevere, you must not provoke, and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, I left him four or five times and …

 

In that and during that time and I think what’s been really good for me and What’s given me endurance, defiance, resistance, resilience, whatever it is, is the kind act of strangers, people you never expected. Like the woman at Sussan who I would come in every day once he would leave and go to work and

 

I would jump out the window, literally, I was young and agile, could jump out the window and headlock the doors and I’d go, yeah right, ⁓ and go up to the local Sussan store and every day would imagine a world and a possibility that wasn’t the horror that I was living. ⁓ And like most people I think who live through violence and trauma, we dissociate.

 

For me, dissociation was also a positive thing because it allowed me to imagine a world ⁓ that was possible. and in that world I kind of really cultivated an alternative to the horror. ⁓ And the random strangers who existed in that world, the woman at Sussan who every day knew I would come in, jump out the window, come in. ⁓

 

And she would know I would never buy something. I never had the money, never had the means. He never gave me any and didn’t work and, you know, I children. And she would say, hello, can I help you? Every day as though I was someone new. I didn’t annoy her, even though I said, can I try this on, can I try that on? And began to wear jeans that I wasn’t allowed to wear and tried all this stuff on every day. And she, you know, did not tire from.

 

going, hello, can I help you? And I think to women like that and individuals like that, you have no idea about the impact you will have on the trajectory of somebody’s life. Act of kindness, not from people that are expected to be kind, but from random, whether it’s your teacher who goes over and above, whether it’s a stranger who says, you okay?

 

DI (19:58)

Through an act of kindness.

 

HANA (20:12)

whether it’s, And they’re the ones that I think are profoundly important in and through the experience of those of us that have at times been isolated and been violent. Absolutely, an important one.

 

DI (20:24)

It’s a memory that you hold. Yeah.

 

Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Well, coming up, we’re going to talk about more about how Hannah became a beacon of empowerment and social change.

 

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.

 

So Hannah, leaving the marriage wasn’t easy, but what it did expose for you was that the system was really failing women. What did you find?

 

HANA (21:03)

Look, absolutely, and I think, I mean, I wish there were other alternatives for me at the time, and I look back at some of those experiences, and they are heartbreaking, that there aren’t any real and meaningful options for women to be safe and free of violence and trauma. ⁓

 

in leaving whilst it was very difficult and multi-layered, you know, from the control of violence within the home to then the societal control that says you can’t leave, you are defined by being a divorcee or in our culture you can’t, or in our faith it is not a possible option and all those things. And then the legal system who deems you fit or unfit.

 

to care for your children without recognising the life that you are enduring and experiencing through and with a violent partner without understanding the consequences of that. You are deemed based on having left a certain way or then you are defined and judged by those events. So I think the…

 

At every level, individually, at a societal level, at a cultural level, at a legal institutional level, women have failed repeatedly. And I think it’s understandable why women stay and why the revolving door scenario women return. With that said, it’s then no surprise. I then went on to work in women’s services and for 13 years my life was

 

and continues to be, but in that iteration committed to law reform, to changing some of the interventions, at least at a social level, to shifting and challenging some of the attitudes that enabled and allowed violence to endure. So I did everything from working in direct service, picking up the phone, speaking to a woman in crisis, to then

 

looking at effective models and responses to women who are escaping violence and abuse, to even sitting on government, national, state level on advisory boards talking about this issue. And thankfully, and still inadequately, but certainly thankfully, law reform and the recognition that this isn’t just a domestic.

 

At least those conversations have changed. We’ve still got a very long way to go. But we’re certainly not where we once were.

 

DI (23:54)

Did your mother get to live to see you do this work? ⁓

 

HANA (23:58)

Yes,

 

yes, yes, yes. My mother got to live not only to see me do this work and often, you know, working with other younger Muslim women in similar predicaments at times and really challenging and rewriting traditions and customs ⁓ and slowly also watching the transition and change of some of my mother’s attitudes over the years. And my father.

 

And then obviously opening the Moroccan soup bar and ⁓

 

DI (24:34)

come to that because I want to talk about that.

 

HANA (24:37)

In

 

the domestic violence sector and responses, guess for me, the lens and the experience has always been about those on the margins and those ⁓ who the system fails and continues to let down. And I think not through ⁓ ill intent at all, yet the system continued to let down. ⁓

 

because it’s established in a way that is a band aid to the problem. is not.

 

DI (25:08)

It’s not addressing the cause. ⁓

 

HANA (25:11)

And I think after 13 years, there was one incident where a woman phoned in with two children and we’d exhausted every option. And back then there’s only transitional housing and crisis housing and hotels and there was nothing available. And she said, I’m out on the street. I have two children. I need somewhere to go. And I couldn’t find anywhere. And we had nothing available to her. And I was told that I’m supposed to say.

 

there’s nothing available. Now for me that was personal. It was a profoundly personal, relatable story. ⁓ And that was the defining moment for where and how the Moroccan Super was established.

 

DI (25:54)

Ah. Well, we had on the podcast a few weeks ago the CEO of the Why Do We CA Australia, Michelle Phillips. Yes. And talking specifically about homelessness for women and that the cohort now that super surpassed the over 50s is now the 25 to 38 year olds through largely domestic violence.

 

And whilst we’re yet to know if anything will come of it, ⁓ from that podcast I had somebody reach out through the website only the other day asking could we connect them with the YWCA because they want to invest in women’s housing. hopefully that becomes a call to action and something that

 

HANA (26:47)

And I mean, just some basic re-imaginings. ⁓ Because at the moment, for all the measurable indicators, the indicators is that gender-based violence is going the wrong way.

 

DI (27:05)

Yeah, well we can see it in the statistics every day in the news. It’s tragic.

 

HANA (27:10)

And a lot of people say, yeah, it’s because women report more. No, that’s not true because the measurable indicators are sadly the brutal end to domestic violence, which is murder. Those numbers are going up and they’re not a perception. So if these are the indicators, then there’s something amiss in the way we are responding to the issue.

 

DI (27:38)

and to your point, band-aiding it rather than addressing it at the root cause.

 

HANA (27:42)

And I simply say some basic things and when we talk about the Moroccan Soup Bar, for 25 years we have unwittingly and organically evolved the model that women don’t return at all. Not one woman has gone back to a violent partner in 25 years at the Moroccan Soup Bar. Not because there’s something magic about us, not because we’re amazing, but because I think our response is needs driven.

 

DI (28:12)

Yep.

 

HANA (28:12)

⁓ It organically evolved around the enduring needs of women, not just the crisis itself, but the ongoing needs like housing, upskilling women.

 

DI (28:24)

So tell us, where did the soup bar start, the Moroccan soup bar? It is your baby.

 

HANA (28:27)

So,

 

that day that I had this woman who said, you know, I need somewhere to go and there was nowhere for her to go and to me I found that extraordinarily difficult to accept. There’s always an option and there should be. If there isn’t, there should be. ⁓ I would have taken her home, you know.

 

But obviously worker safety and wellbeing and you’re not allowed to and you have boundary issues if you did and whatever. There’s always a solution. has to be a solution. Anyway, so driving home in that state, there was a sign on the side of the road saying, Felice of a shopfront on St. George’s Road. I pulled over and phoned the agent and he happened to be in the area and showed me through this

 

space. ⁓ It was carpeted. It was absolutely nothing and it was a derelict kind of strip. There was no other retail. So it was a thoroughfare St. George’s Road. And there and then I found myself haggling and brokering a lease deal, not knowing what it would be other than it would be a space that is safe, run by women for women. ⁓

 

DI (29:50)

because there had to be a solution.

 

HANA (29:52)

Absolutely. And this is, I guess, probably an important aspect of who I am and how I’ve navigated my life. I think women’s intuition is undervalued, in fact, often judged. And our intuition, ⁓

 

DI (30:09)

could not agree more.

 

HANA (30:17)

you know, is being made to, ⁓ put that aside. It is about reason, it’s about a plan, it’s about ⁓ everything with an end game. so we prioritise reason and everything that is quantifiable over intuition. And for me, what’s held my entire life in good stead and what’s never harmed me.

 

DI (30:29)

not always

 

HANA (30:43)

society harms me, and individuals and cultures, ⁓ but your own intuition, if you allow it and get in touch with it as a barometer, will never put you in harm’s way. And I think women’s intuition, reinvesting in it and re-trusting it as women is probably one of the best things we can do for ourselves. ⁓ Now, the difference is, sadly, intuition doesn’t have a plan. It just says,

 

take that step. We don’t know what will happen, but trust and take that step. And from that step, wherever you are, intuitively, you will know where the next step is. And your life will organically and authentically unfold. The issue is you can’t then take that to a bank and say, fund this intuition, because I want to open up a place and I know it’ll work. And I did, in fact, go to the bank and they went, yeah, no.

 

DI (31:44)

Talked to nearly any trailblazer or entrepreneur, intuition will have been what drove them.

 

HANA (31:51)

Yes. ⁓ And I think intuition should be part of the story. I’m not saying it’s the only story, but certainly for me, in every major life-changing and defining moment, it has been intuitive. ⁓ You know, I believe in theories, energies, vibes, ⁓ as much as everything else that is tangible. ⁓

 

DI (32:18)

But you know how to tap into it. Not everybody does.

 

HANA (32:21)

I’ve had to. It is that space that’s kept me safe. ⁓

 

DI (32:27)

It’s been your imagination that would have emotionally kept you safe years ago.

 

HANA (32:33)

And I’ve learned, and in that sense, I’ve been really, really lucky that, you know, that the circumstances didn’t define me, but that I’ve found a way to navigate through, kind of just being in yourself and looking inward.

 

DI (32:49)

So how is the Moroccan Soup Kitchen supporting women and fulfilling the dream that you identified through intuition that day?

 

HANA (32:58)

Yes, so what I thought is it would be a place for women to be safe. And then the next layer of that is society often and certainly in our cultures, women are conditioned in kitchens often. ⁓ And they are rarely rewarded, remunerated or supported or valued for that work. It’s often work that’s exploited, that’s part of the expectation of what we do. ⁓

 

And then you look for a real job. And then I thought, what if we flip that on its head a little bit and we started where women are at, what they know how to do. And they know how to be in kitchens. Bring them in. Here’s a kitchen. And we know how to do hospitality and certainly in our culture. mean, we’re… So we thought women…

 

DI (33:43)

Morning kitchens.

 

HANA (33:49)

in a kitchen and we would offer up the, and I’m vegetarian, so we would make it the best possible vegetarian food ⁓ served up to Melbourne, cooked by these women. And for me it was also really important not to make the story about women, that women’s dignity was important, that the story is about this is a food place of Moroccan vegetarian food. Back of house it had a different story.

 

DI (34:15)

Yeah.

 

HANA (34:15)

because it’s not a charity. Women don’t need pity and charity. What they need is pathways and opportunities. ⁓ so at least I knew enough to separate the two. And front of house, this was for all intents and purposes, something that was grounded in our culture, that was being offered up to Melbourne as an alternative to vegetarianism, which at the time, you know,

 

DI (34:41)

Yeah.

 

There wasn’t much there.

 

HANA (34:46)

sauce and I valued

 

the integrity of flavors and had experimented over the years because I’m vegetarian, turfing the meat and chicken and putting potato and chickpeas. So I’d experimented for myself because I was familiar with a palate that is rich in flavor. And then, you know, the women came and ⁓

 

gave him a few recipes and said, is what we’re cooking and it’s vegetarian and it’ll be like this and we opened the Moroccan soup bar genuinely in good faith. 1998, pre-internet, pre-…

 

DI (35:21)

What year? wow.

 

Pre social media. Pre any of it. Yeah, wow.

 

HANA (35:31)

In the hope that, you know, and everybody at the time, absolutely every single living human being said to me, what are you doing? This is insane. What do you know about hospitality? And you’ve got a good job. You’re a coordinator of an organization. What? And I thought, no, something in me intuitively ⁓ thought not that

 

it would be and become what it has, but that I needed to do something that was different to the system that was a revolving door bandaid. How and what that looked like I didn’t know and trusted that it would be okay. Whatever it is, it’ll be okay.

 

DI (36:16)

What’s happening back at house?

 

HANA (36:18)

So Back of House, ⁓ women and to this day, I can tell you, we’ve never advertised for staff. And Back of House, is a space for women ⁓ to disrupt the cycle of violence initially, but then to look at and walk alongside them on whatever their journey is, whether it’s from basic language to up-skilling to developing.

 

you want to be a chef, want to whatever it is, you want to be a childcare worker, to walk alongside their journey, housing, childcare, and all those tangible things along the way became evident and we organically together reimagined solutions. So housing, coming back to your housing in the YWCA, women would say, okay,

 

DI (36:54)

This is

 

HANA (37:14)

I could never ring up an estate agent. I don’t have the references, don’t have the means to live alone and compete in private rental. Public and social housing needed five years to get into. So we would come together and I would say, listen, I’ll call and over the years we’ve got to know many real estate agents. Some of them are amazing. And what I would say is, I don’t want you to give her the house, but what I want you to do is I will guarantee

 

this application at least get a look in. And in their application often women will say, how about we live together? To other women. And how about I’ll look after your kids when you’re working, you look after my kids when I’m working. And that way they deal with the prohibitive childcare costs, ⁓ housing.

 

DI (37:46)

Yeah.

 

HANA (38:09)

They share the cost of housing and on top of it, the other layers of support, they validate one another’s experience. So they don’t end up going back. And I think they’ve been part of the success story of the Moroccan Super. And then on top of it, we identified. So that was the immediate need. And then we identified, okay, so what do you want to do if you want to springboard out of here to wherever else? And some would say, I want to do childcare. I want to do, ⁓

 

DI (38:23)

tested.

 

HANA (38:39)

advocacy, whatever it is, I want to be a patisserie chef. So we then formulated arrangements with Box Hill Institute and others to upskill these women. And the biggest problem sadly again is when people are not in touch with the lived experience.

 

They’ll say, there’s an option to upskill, get them to apply, here’s a course funded by government, la, la, la. Okay, but it competes with putting food on the table. If any woman is to take up that option, she has to take six weeks out of her income earning capacity to do that course to then be upskilled. And often, it’s not that women don’t want to. So I paid for their training as part of their time at the Moroccan Soup Bar.

 

DI (39:23)

prohibitive

 

HANA (39:30)

And often we would bring the training in and the hours are paid and there’s a ⁓ synergy between, I think, women, the courses that they are learning. And then they can see a vision and an outcome, an endpoint. It’s not just, here’s your accommodation to disrupt the crisis, now go fend for yourself, which is how sadly the system is made. And I think that’s been the successful

 

⁓ part of transitioning women and challenging quietly at times and at times more overtly some of the assumptions that are the very drivers of violence and gender-based violence, assumptions around female genital mutilation, for example, or assumptions around should women endure and stay and persevere in some circumstances or ⁓

 

you will have to defy your parents because, you know, we’re supposed to afford them respect, all those kind of things. When challenged from a place of knowledge ⁓ and when we can put aside superstition and culture and tradition, but come back to the very premise of what it is to be a decent human being, even a person of faith, then I think we can rewrite.

 

some of those outcomes and the Moroccan soup bar has been there for women back of house and the other thing that at the Moroccan soup bar not one woman has walked in the door knocked on the door and said I want a job and I’ve said no to and often we don’t need staff.

 

DI (41:13)

So have you been self-sustaining? Can I ask that? have. whole time.

 

HANA (41:16)

 

whole time. And I love that because it gives you the freedom to

 

DI (41:23)

You’re not beholden to anybody else’s.

 

HANA (41:25)

Nobody’s agenda, nobody’s criteria. It is simply the criteria of making the circumstances a little better for those we stumble across. And then obviously front of house, it grew into many over 26 years, many social causes became evident ⁓ and required us to take a stand like ⁓

 

DI (41:37)

It’s even more fantastic.

 

HANA (41:53)

our relationship to First Nations communities, how we can be allies, how we can take the responsibility beyond just acknowledgments, ⁓ to being effective allies in those conversations, the climate emergency, how we can reimagine plastic, polystyrene, all that sort of stuff.

 

DI (42:14)

So cultural limitations are irrelevant in any of this? Absolutely. You’ve diversified.

 

HANA (42:19)

Well, because I go back to, for me, kindness, compassion, justice, fairness, all those things, they’re a perspective. They’re not cause specific. And they can’t be just when it’s convenient, I’m only talking about this group. No. That no matter where they are and what you come across and you’re confronted by, that perspective is my responsibility to enact. So…

 

You know, same-sex marriage, all of those issues as they ⁓ became apparent over time and became social conversations, we took a stand on and our community, ⁓ and I often say I feel like a surrogate aunt.

 

DI (43:03)

I bet you do.

 

HANA (43:05)

community. And it’s not just North Victoria, we became a destination place, everybody came, it’s so humbling. ⁓ But with it, people, and I think it reaffirmed this idea that if you build it, they will come. Quirky as it may be, unconventional as it is, that it resonated with ⁓ the betterment of who we are. And a community was not only forgiving,

 

of, you know, at times some of the girls spilt tea on people. We’re not from hospitality. The food was great, always. ⁓ We never compromised on the standard. And yet people found themselves drawn to a place that was refuge to those values, I think. And no matter who you were, the richest

 

⁓ and or the most marginalised or homeless, you were afforded the same dignity and the place was yours. and I think that affirmation back from community, that kept us buoyed and it certainly allowed us to endure through COVID and… ⁓

 

DI (44:04)

Meh.

 

You’re

 

busier today with the activities that I will call back of house than front of house by contrast.

 

HANA (44:30)

So obviously I’ve written a book, in the book it’s also a deliberate contribution, I think, to bearing witness to our times in what I find that we are hostile to and repealing some of the gains that women have made over the years. ⁓

 

DI (44:32)

Yeah.

 

HANA (44:57)

That to me feels like it’s got a lot of momentum and pushback from the highest office of the land to some social media influencers or whoever it is. that conversation around putting women back in their place ⁓ should have remained in the history books. And yet, ⁓ we’re talking about abortion rights again, we’re revisiting ⁓ attitudes that I just find extraordinary.

 

And that gave me the impetus to write about, I mean, we call it a memoir. It is called The Audacity to be Free, but to reimagine freedom. And, you know, if I had to write my life story, I think it’ll be a thousand page and that’ll only be the beginning. But I did pick snippets of my life that spoke to these issues.

 

in the hope that they can resonate with and contribute to a conversation that we are having at the moment as a country on gender-based violence and how to engage all of society. Because this to me isn’t a women’s problem, nor is it a men’s problem. It’s our problem. And sad to say we all contribute.

 

to upholding attitudes through our silence and through what we say ⁓ that form part of the drivers. And the other thing I think is also important and ⁓ doesn’t really have a lot of space is that not all men are wholesale to blame for violence against women. And we unwittingly do this because we’ve left the field, we’ve gone

 

No, violence against women is a gendered problem. Yes, it is, but not all men are perpetrators of violence. all perpetrators are perpetrators and we need to really have better systems of accountability for that, absolutely. And at times even, dare I say, remove the man. Keep an eye on him, remove him, don’t disrupt her life and children anyway. Absolutely, and simple. And the other thing,

 

DI (47:15)

Wouldn’t that be novel?

 

HANA (47:21)

The men who are not perpetrators, they are our allies. Engage them in a way. Don’t, I mean, we’ve backed, sad to say, from what I’ve seen, men into a corner of not knowing how to be and what to do. And at times, equally, not all women are wholesale victims of violence, because even unwittingly, and at times overtly, but unwittingly, ⁓

 

DI (47:24)

Absolutely.

 

Yes, I couldn’t get him on

 

HANA (47:49)

You know, men like Trump were once boys in the home. Given legitimacy, What we ask our sons and daughters are different things. What we expect and allow for sons and daughters are different things. We are complicit also in

 

…the very attitudes that enable, because when boys grow up in households, and they’re not just the domain of women, both men and women, in what they witness, ⁓ and then it’s reinforced at a social setting, in schools, our boys will be boys, they play like… …and then it’s reinforced in politics, even in our political settings, that whole adversarial have-a-go toxic culture…

 

DI (48:25)

See it on the school bus.

 

I’m

 

that at the moment and it’s a reminder that it’s been going on for a long time.

 

HANA (48:47)

So let’s invite and engage ⁓ decent men in ⁓ being part of the solution, as well as, I think, women in all our roles and responsibilities, also reimagining and questioning some of the attitudes that we uphold. ⁓ which

 

you know, I think, are contributors, our attitudes towards men and women and boys and girls and non-binary people and prejudice and all of it. ⁓ These are the drivers. Yes, governments have a role and a responsibility and must address better institutions and systems and legal responses, ⁓ but it would be remiss of us not to look at the attitudinal drivers. ⁓

 

and engage men because I think we’ve left the void and that void has been filled by the Andrew Tates and others. The solution, the one thing I would say is at the moment we’re trying to second guess ourselves a little bit and kind of go, yeah, men need to be part of the solution, let them do the men’s shed and no. The solution has to be driven by women, supported by men.

 

DI (49:49)

That’s right.

 

HANA (50:09)

That is the only way those solutions are going to be effective. They need to be defined and driven by those who endure and experience the issue as allies with taking responsibility for the privileges they hold in society as our allies. So I think the solution to me is not impossible. In fact, it’s probable if we allow and make space for

 

⁓ a reimagining and that flagpole of a vision where society is freer for everybody to live with dignity and respect.

 

DI (50:49)

Thank you, Hannah. And if I wrap that up in a bow, The most salient point out of that, I think, to share and reinforce is the solution is created by women but supported by men. Absolutely. I think that’s it in an absolute nutshell. What an absolute pleasure and a privilege to speak with you today.

 

I will ensure that we add the details to the Moroccan Soup Kitchen in the show notes and a link to your book, The Audacity, to be free. And be sure to share this episode because this is a really important episode on so many levels. It touches on so many of societal challenges today and there won’t be anybody in your orbit that this isn’t relevant for, so please be sure to share it.

 

You can catch it on all of the ⁓ audio platforms and on YouTube. Until next time.

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