FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT [Host] (00:02)

Hey Yas, what does power of women mean to you?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (00:07)

Gosh, the power of women, I guess I absolutely live by this phrase, but one of things that I love is that women share their insights and their practical strategies to success with each other. And on a podcast like this, it really just amplifies those messages. For me, I live by this saying that what we make visible shapes what others believe is possible.

And so I love any opportunity where we get to learn from each other and share our success stories so that other people can see that blueprint to break through as well.

DI GILLETT [Host] (00:54)

Was

there a moment where you thought, this is me, take it or leave it? I’m Di Gillett and this is the Power Of Women Podcast and we’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And today’s guest has worn many hats, elite athlete, police officer, cyber safety expert, keynote speaker, founder, soon to be published author and now a woman.

who has stepped fully into a purpose-led life. Yas is the CEO of First Movers and co-founder of First Movers Media, where she equips individuals, particularly women and girls, to lead courageously, communicate with impact, and become visible forces for change in a fast-paced digital age. Joining me from Sydney, Australia, Yasmin London, welcome to the Power of Women Podcast.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (01:52)

⁓

I am so excited to be here, Di. Thank you so much for having me. It’s gonna be a great conversation.

DI GILLETT [Host] (01:58)

Yes,

let’s start with a bit of backstory about you, could. us about growing up.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (02:06)

gosh, growing up, I had a pretty, lovely childhood, I have to admit. I grew up in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, a pretty privileged upbringing, ⁓ you know, two loving parents, but a really, really fun upbringing as well, because we are a family of powerful women. And when I say that, let me just give you a snapshot of what that looks like. ⁓ I am one of what is now, I think a group of 15 strong.

women in my family. So from my great grandmother to my now ⁓ niece, we only have women in our family. We’ve never had a boy born into the family out of 15 different births over the last couple of years. So when I say, know, I grew up with a group of female cheerleaders, ⁓ I’m not kidding. ⁓ And I guess, you know, that created a pretty feisty child.

deaf to the word no, I was pretty independent and extroverted and I think my mum would always describe me as a kid who was bored easily which meant that I found myself in some pretty fun situations here and there as a youngster.

DI GILLETT [Host] (03:16)

And

what about your knees? Stronger or on par?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (03:20)

God, look out for all of these. What they’re coming up, whether it’s my daughters, my nieces, my cousins’ kids, they’re all strong, little, fierce, independent Wonder Women. And I’m often reminded of that meme, know, that strong women may be, may we be them, may we raise them. ⁓ It’s really what’s going on, I guess, in our family at the moment. ⁓ We’re definitely balancing the scales, put it that way.

DI GILLETT [Host] (03:48)

I’ve got ⁓ a great niece called Rosie and she is a force to be reckoned with and I keep saying to my husband, where did she get it from? And then he plays out a story and I go, hell.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (04:01)

But wouldn’t we rather have that? I think that even with my own kids, I’ve got two daughters, my eldest is nearly 12 and I’ve got a nine-year-old. Sometimes you’ve got to parent the best and worst of you out of them, but I’d much rather them be feisty independent girls than wallflowers. 100%. So you’ve got to remind yourself of that sometimes.

DI GILLETT [Host] (04:20)

to go out and chase life.

Yeah. So coming back to that question I posed in the opening, Yas, have you ever said, is me, take it or leave it?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (04:36)

Oh yeah, I think, you know, it takes some time to get to that point in your life. And often, you know, I’m 44 this year, you know, I probably am much more certain in who I am and what I want in life now than I was in my twenties, as many people listening today is probably, you know, can resonate with. Um, but there has certainly been moments in my life where I had to acknowledge who I was on the inside. Um, you know, own my own myself, you know, warts and all, and the person that I am.

⁓ And yeah, just say this is who I am, take it or leave it. you know, in my life, hopefully most people have decided to take it.

DI GILLETT [Host] (05:15)

Fantastic. Yeah. So let’s just have a look at your background because as I said, athlete, police officer, cyber safety expert, founder speaker, author, published about to be…

YAS LONDON [Guest] (05:32)

About to be in a couple of months time. Yeah. in progress, but yes.

DI GILLETT [Host] (05:36)

Beautiful. So is there a joining of the dots in this? Did one thing lead to the other?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (05:45)

Yeah, I think what you’ve just shared, Diet, sounds like a lot of different areas, but I think the golden thread is I’ve never been really afraid to try something new. so a lot of those careers have kind of just evolved one from the other.

It’s because I really believe that our skills, our behaviors, our attitudes, they’re transferable in lots of different parts of life. It’s just up to us to be unafraid to step into something new. And so, you know, if I think about my life as an athlete, that gave me a lot of great skills when it comes to, you know, discipline to show up when I didn’t feel like it or resilience to learn and try again. And, you know, the importance of things like consistency and knowing that that’s actually how confidence is built.

allowed me to become a police officer and you know to deal with some of the challenges that come with a role like that. Obviously starting your day at five o’clock in the morning four to five days a week and being okay with that. ⁓ You know being able to overcome challenges in really tricky situations like ⁓ that can be life and death or can be quite confronting in terms of what you’re walking into. Those skills really did transfer and

I’m sure we’ll talk about it more today, moving into the world of technology and cyber safety, that was challenging for me because I don’t and still don’t see myself as a tech person. Like if I’m the one that’s relied upon to try and fix the television remote, like good luck to you. But.

I understand people, I guess, and my skills in terms of understanding them and communicating with them is what led me into that world of technology and the impact that tech has on human beings and how we behave and why we behave a certain way. And so from my time in the police force, I saw a gap, I saw something that needed to be fixed or done better. And so I just went ahead and gave it a go. And that’s sort of what led me into the world of technology and digital safety.

DI GILLETT [Host] (07:46)

Yeah, awesome. Well, we’re going to delve into all of those bits in some form of sequential order. Let’s start with the athlete because you won a world championship.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (08:00)

Yes, well I won the World Cup, Gold, Silver and Bronze, which was in Malmo in Sweden in the year 2000. So yeah, I can say I’m an international gold medalist, which is a pretty big tick off the list for many athletes for sure.

DI GILLETT [Host] (08:13)

Absolutely. And 2000 was an Olympic year, but you had your first real hurdle in that because as I understand it, you didn’t make the games.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (08:29)

Yeah, yeah, that was a challenging time. I think when you have swum at an international meet and won, you know, a gold, silver and bronze, and then, you know, you see yourself as obviously one of the top qualifiers or top potential qualifiers for an Olympic Games in that same year. That was in February. The Olympic trials, I think, were in May. And yeah, I just didn’t have a great race.

that day, it’s all I can put it down to. I did the preparation, I put the work in and you know, I had a bit of a slip off the blocks as a backstroker. So there’s always that sort of challenging area of where you put your feet and how gripped they are on the wall. Sometimes it works well, other times, you know, there’s no other way to put it. It just wasn’t my day. And so subsequently missed the qualifying time and missed, you know, the top.

top two, which you need to come in to make an Olympic Games ⁓ and had to sort of suffer the consequences of that, which was hard of a lesson.

DI GILLETT [Host] (09:33)

And I think with high performing athletes, you’ve got to peak at the right moment. So peaking in February and then holding it there for that long, I mean, that’s kind of a metaphor for life. How hard is it to do that, to peak at the right time?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (09:52)

Yeah, it’s challenging. mean, as an athlete, you train to peak at key.

points in the athletic calendar year. Obviously the Olympics is the pinnacle. ⁓ You taper off a couple of weeks before a big race and you hope it all comes together. But sometimes things just go awry. A lot of the time when you do taper down and you allow your body to relax, that’s where you’re going to get a cold or you’re going to get sick or your immune system is going to dip and…

There’s just nothing that you can do about it at times. But there are moments that you can overcome it. I’ve raced many a time where I thought I was going to do a terrible job. I was unwell. I talk about this a lot in a keynote that I do in particular, swimming a race with a 40 degree fever internationally and still coming out with a bronze medal unexpectedly. Sometimes you surprise yourself.

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:49)

That describes life in so many ways.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (10:51)

It really does. You just have to deal with the unpredictability of it.

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:56)

So how old were you in 2000? You were…

YAS LONDON [Guest] (11:00)

I turned 18. yeah, 2000, I was just finishing school and yeah, turned 18. So became an adult and had to sort of figure out what to do with my life post-swimming, which was challenging.

DI GILLETT [Host] (11:15)

So what did that, missing the team, what did that do to your sense of self as a young woman? ⁓

YAS LONDON [Guest] (11:25)

think that moment had multiple impacts on…

my life. know, it was obviously a failure. was the pinnacle for any athlete to make an Olympic team, to call yourself an Olympian. You can win every other race on earth, but if you aren’t in the Olympics, there’s still something deep down that’s missing. So that was challenging to overcome. But I think a lot of things happened at once at that time because I had turned 18, become an adult, because I had finished school and had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life at that point. And I also decided

that, you know, did I want to go another four years and try again for the Olympics? And I just had to listen to my heart at that time, which, you know, as much as I tried to deny it, said, no, you’re not, you don’t know. I don’t have another four years in me. And

You know, the other thing was what was I going to do with life because we didn’t have the opportunities that are now available to many athletes, not very many female athletes, I might say, you know, sponsorships or commentating positions or whatever it might be, the dreams that all of us probably had deep down. They weren’t really realistic. And so I knew I had to reinvent myself at that point in time.

And it was challenging because all I’d ever known myself as was a swimmer and an athlete and everybody that I knew knew me as that. And so I did have a bit of a crisis of confidence and identity at that point in time, if I’m honest, I because I didn’t know who I was without swimming. And so it was a bit of a journey of self discovery from there.

DI GILLETT [Host] (13:03)

How did you land at where you landed? Because it’s the only commonality I can see so far is the 5 a.m.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (13:12)

Yeah,

I mean, look, that was a good lesson. It was good skills and experience to get. But I basically, you know, I had to run away in a way. I had what I call my gap year at that point in time. And I went over to Canada. just I had

found myself randomly working in reality television in the production unit. And I met a guy who I knew for a couple of days, it’s gonna sound so crazy, but he was lovely, who was a cameraman from Canada who would come out to Australia to film a television show. And when we finished working together for these couple of days, he said, oh, if you ever wanna come to Canada and do some work over here, give me a call, I’d love to have you come over. And because I…

really wasn’t sure what I was doing with my life. I just kind of took him up on his offer and I still cannot to this day believe my mum allowed me to go halfway across the world to go live in some guy’s like dungeon in his house, which it was. ⁓

But I think she knew I just needed to go and evolve. so I went over there and he was, he remains a wonderful friend. was a great person to me through a bit of a crisis time in my life. But I needed to be around people who didn’t know me for my swimming career, who wanted to get to know me for the person that I was. And I spent, yeah, close to 12 months over in Canada, doing all the things that I’d missed out on, I guess, as a teenager, going to parties,

being silly, doing, you I had my 21st birthday in Las Vegas. I went to Cuba, you know, all these great like growth opportunities, I guess, that happened for me. But I did know that I had to come back and get a job. And in my mind, I’d always sort of been thinking a little bit about what that might be. And towards the end of the trip, ⁓ this guy, his name was Kelly, his sister was an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And one night she said, do you want to come on a ride along with me and see what the job’s all about? Which again, would never ever happen.

DI GILLETT [Host] (15:20)

in Australia. No, I was going to say that is, I was going to say does that happen? You see it

YAS LONDON [Guest] (15:25)

movies

but it did. It did then. I remember thinking gosh I should not be here because I was literally in the back of her police car driving to different jobs and it was so exciting and it was really fun and I loved the diversity of the work.

deep down the meaning and the impact that they had as police officers for people in these sorts of situations. And so, you know, I may or may not have had a bit of a crush on Dana Scully from the X-Files as a young girl and really loved a bit of the X-Files there. So I came back and went, why not join the police force? So I put my application in and the rest is history.

DI GILLETT [Host] (16:03)

that is awesome. So, but more than that, around that time, you’re also navigating your own identity in life in general. Can you share something about that with us?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (16:17)

Yeah, well, I think perhaps because I had spent years with my head looking up and down a black line, I’d not really explored much about my sexuality or who I was as a person. so, you know, I guess with the relief of what was happening in the swimming world now off my mind, it gave me space and time to sort of decide who I was and to explore a lot of those thoughts and feelings. And

I had never honestly given a second thought to being attracted to women versus men. ⁓ I’d always sort of been pretty balanced in that way, I guess, but it became evident while I was away that perhaps I swung the other way and it allowed me time to explore that, I guess. ⁓ So yeah, that was another.

change and quite a big change, I guess, to deal with amongst that loss of identity as an athlete and this new identity as a police officer. So yeah, I guess go back to your original question. Did I have to ever

find a time where I just went this is who I am, warts and all, accept me or not. That was probably the biggest moment for me ⁓ when it came to my family and my friends of standing in my power and you know believing in who I was and what I needed as a human being.

DI GILLETT [Host] (17:39)

So did you share that with family once you got back to Oz or did you share that from a distance from Canada?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (17:45)

No, I shared it when I got back to Oz. I think, you you’re not going to tell your parents too much about what you’re getting up to on Saturday nights and running around at, you know, gay bars and things like that. I think, you know, the moment that my mum started to notice that I was hanging around with a lot of lesbians and I remember her saying to me, darling, you’re never going to get a boyfriend if you keep hanging out with all these lesbian girls. And I sort of just had to turn to her in that moment and say, look, mum.

There’s a reason that I’m hanging out with a lot of lesbian girls who were my friends, mind you. ⁓ But it was about building community, I guess, and trying to ⁓ figure out who I was. I wasn’t putting any major labels on that, but I did.

⁓ one who acknowledge and give myself permission to explore this side of myself that I hadn’t thought about before. ⁓ So yeah, look, I have a beautiful family. I’m fortunate that I never really was at risk of some of the really terrible consequences that many other people in their rainbow community have had to deal with, like being disowned or…

you know, being abused or whatever it might be for being who you are. But I did have to deal with the perception of grief and loss of the life they thought that I would live. ⁓ Certainly for my mum, there was concerns around

you know, having children and getting married and all of the things that she had in her mind about what my life would look like. And I can now reflecting back, really understand the kind of grief and loss element of that. But I’ve always been pretty determined to live life on my terms. And I was not going to miss out on having children and I was not going to miss out on getting married if that was what I chose to do. Marriage equality hadn’t happened at that point. But

⁓ you know, I was going to live a life as close to what I had decided I was going to have, ⁓ no matter who I was with. So that kind of.

DI GILLETT [Host] (19:48)

keeping

all of those boxes since then.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (19:51)

Yeah, we have. ⁓ I think, you know, you live a life on your terms. It’s not always easy, but you have more control than you think.

DI GILLETT [Host] (20:00)

Yeah, that’s wonderful. So if there is a woman in the audience at the moment or a listener at the moment who has reached a crossroad and doesn’t know how to actually step forward with that, what would you like her to walk away with?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (20:19)

Look, I think the first thing is to be a bit kind on yourself and don’t place unrealistic expectations on yourself. You’ve got to have self-acceptance first because once you do…

come out with this, it can be jarring for some people. We’re lucky now that in this day and age there is a lot more acceptance, ⁓ not just acceptance, but an embracing of the rainbow community. That’s not to say there aren’t challenges and people pushing against it, of course, as we’re starting to see around the world. But I think being sure of yourself, listening to that inner voice is really important, taking some time to explore and make sure that it’s right.

And then I think the big thing is finding community around you, you your champions, your allies, the people who love you for who you are. You’ll know who they are and to lean on them. I think I imagine a lot of the listeners on this podcast are really strong, competent, you know, often known as alpha.

women or allies and sometimes we can get trapped in thinking that we can do it all ourselves but we’ve got to remember that we need community and supporters around us and to create those support networks and systems.

DI GILLETT [Host] (21:32)

And that’s a

really interesting point, Yas, because I think you’re right. ⁓ We end up being attracted to like-minded people. We group together, we find ourselves. mean, if I think of all of my girlfriends, they’re all fierce, determined. There’s so many of them who are entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs and go-getters, and your world will be the same. But it doesn’t mean we don’t struggle with the same things that…

that those who have less confidence than ourselves have. And in some respects, we feel we need to keep the wall up so that people don’t know that we might leave our feet paddling underwater at a million miles an hour just to keep our heads above water.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (22:17)

That’s right. That’s right. I think it is hard, especially if you see yourself and you identify as a high achiever. It can be particularly difficult to reach out and ask for help because people are, guess, surprised that you need it. can be these real perceptions and you’ve got it all handled. And we’ve got to just be realistic and remember nobody has it all handled. Certainly not all of the time. And so it is that kind of moment for each of us to remember to reach out

our strong friends as well as those that we think perhaps might need extra support because you never know what someone’s going going through you know behind the scenes.

DI GILLETT [Host] (22:55)

Yeah, that’s so true. Well, you’re listening to the Power of Women podcast and I’m talking with Yas London and we’re just getting started.

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.

Yas, you spent 13 years in the New South Wales Police Force, which is quite a period of time. think we’ve already established early mornings from swimming were pretty good training ground because as you’ve already suggested, policing day or your policing day started really, really early. You had the experience in Canada with your cameraman mate’s sister in the Mounties.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (23:37)

be.

DI GILLETT [Host] (23:47)

What was it about the policing that really resonated and when did you know it was right for you?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (23:53)

don’t even know if it was.

perfectly right, but what I did see was a career that allowed me to move around and to get lots of different types of experience. think, you know, I mentioned as a kid, I was bored easily. was, that’s constant. I’m still this challenge for me, to be honest. I like to be stimulated and, you know, have a little bit of a bright, shiny thing, fascination. But, you know, I loved the idea of a career that had social impact. I knew that I was good under pressure.

was good with people and I wanted to be able to contribute I guess in a meaningful way. Meaningful work was important to me.

And so, yeah, the ability to have diverse experiences, whether it was general duties policing or whether it was working in the proactive crime team or whether it was working in corporate comms. I did some supervision for some of the police television shows for a period of time, like Missing Persons Unit and the recruits and Highway Patrol, because I had a bit of a television background that allowed me to sort of step in there. But the majority of my service I spent at Rose Bay Police Station

in the eastern suburbs of Sydney as a youth liaison officer. And I took that role on because I was ready to step off the truck a little bit. Night shifts and ⁓ rotating rosters were pretty challenging. I was never someone that did particularly well staying up all night. ⁓ And I’ve always sort of had a knack with young people to understand where they’re at and to help them. And so I thought that would be a good role. ⁓

And I guess, yeah, that was the role that changed my life, to be honest. ⁓ I dealt with a lot of different situations, but the one that brought me into the world of technology was a suicide negotiation with a 14-year-old girl over a clifftop known as The Gap.

Now that is a not yeah it’s really well well known 96 meters high and you know unfortunately for me as a cop in that area I was there regularly which was a surprise to me when I first started at Rose Bay but ⁓

DI GILLETT [Host] (26:04)

What’s regularly? I

know we don’t talk about suicide in terms of, you know, a media thing, but what is regular in something like that?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (26:16)

Well, you know, depending on the time of year that you were working, there were times where I would be up there several times a week, sometimes several times a shift. So when we were looking at, you know, periods of time of the year, summertime, Christmas time was particularly challenging. I think that’s a really important thing for those of us to, you know, who have.

mainly happy families to remember that times like Christmas can be really, really hard for a lot of people. They aren’t joyful times. They can be dangerous times for many women in particular. ⁓ And yeah, so, you know, it could have been multiple times a shift. think the most I’d been up there is three times in a shift. ⁓

and you’re talking to people sometimes for just a few moments or sometimes you’re up there for a few hours. ⁓ I remember the very first day that I started at Rose Bay, we did our sort of briefing in the morning and we were going on a little ride along up to the gap to just have a look at the area and get familiar with it. And when we arrived, there was an active negotiation happening, which we of course all ran up to help with. And while that negotiation was happening,

another person jumped from the cliff top at the other end of the gap.

That day, I mean, that was a real wake up call to the impact and prevalence of mental health, even in ⁓ the most influential and high socioeconomic areas of our society. We’ve got to understand that other people are struggling and to not make assumptions about what their life looks like. And I think that’s what that day really taught me.

DI GILLETT [Host] (28:02)

Yeah. through that lens, what surprised, and the lens being a police officer, what surprised you most about human behaviour?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (28:14)

⁓ Look, I think after a while there wasn’t a lot of surprises because you learn not to make assumptions about anyone. People have a mask and what’s going on behind that mask can be very, very different. So in terms of the mental health aspects, you know, we dealt with women who were struggling with postnatal depression. We dealt with young people who were dealing with cyber bullying incidents. We dealt with

you know, CEOs who had gambling addictions and had gambled away their life savings and everything and their family didn’t know. We had other elderly people who had been diagnosed with diseases like dementia, who didn’t want to be a drain on their family. All of these different reasons for people to be up there on that cliff top. And so you do learn a lot about what people are going through. And I guess that the only way that you can can

can solve that problem is to connect with them and understand their side. And I think that’s, you know, a really kind of a morbid way to say you’ve learnt life lessons, but I’ll never forget the people and the lessons that I learnt up at the GAP. And I still bring those lessons into what I share in my work today. And I think that really, you know, being able to see someone ⁓ and not make assumptions about them is the greatest lesson that I’ve learnt.

DI GILLETT [Host] (29:37)

Yeah, and that’s a line I have to say, that my husband uses all the time, which is never assume. And I think that is such an important thing. And I know I’m guilty of it, you know, even in the traffic. all are. Yeah, even in the traffic, somebody does something and I might gesture ⁓ my expression of interest at the time. ⁓ you can’t assume what sort of day they’re having.

who’s to know what they’ve just walked out of, what’s going on in their world, how their day started. So I think it’s a really important lesson. But can I ask, and it’s a bit of an obvious question, but I do want to touch on it. In the police force as a female, was that a tough place for you as a collegiate workforce?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (30:32)

For a period of time, definitely. I think there was certainly bigger barriers that I needed to overcome to prove my worth. ⁓ Certainly as a woman and even more so as a gay woman. I think probably the sexualisation ⁓ commentary, the harassment that happened. ⁓ There was workplace bullying. I had situations with a superior who had made advances that I rejected.

who basically gave me the silent treatment for weeks and weeks and that silent treatment extended to quite critical situations that were dangerous where I wasn’t being responded to on police radio. So yeah, it was challenging.

It probably came down more to feeling like I had to prove myself. And once you did get to that point where, you know, you were given the tick of approval anecdotally by your colleagues that you were a good operator, then that reputation did follow you throughout the police force. And that was a benefit, I guess, if you were seen as a competent officer. You know, that continued, but it takes a lot to get there in the first place and certainly as a woman. Yeah.

DI GILLETT [Host] (31:50)

And look, mean, you’re a very attractive woman. Did that work for you or against you in that setting?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (31:57)

⁓ I would say it worked against me for a fairly significant period of time. As I said, you know, I was only seen as fresh meat, I guess, for the first period of time where I was. ⁓ But, you know, that perhaps was by men, but it was also by other female officers. There’s this really interesting, you know, proximity to power.

issue that goes on in the police force. And so I can remember in my first sort of week or so being at the police station that I started at having a female officer call me a lava lamp. I was like confused at what that meant. It means pretty to look at, but not much else going on and or not much else that you can you can offer. So, you know, coming into a new workplace, I was I think all of

23, 24 years old, really enthusiastic, wanting to start. And that was kind of the entry. And so it was a bit shocking and a bit hard to handle. But I always sort of go back into this, guess, frame of mind of what can I control here? And a little bit of a, can prove myself and I’m gonna prove you wrong. That’s just that kind of, I don’t know, fire in my belly that I have as part of my nature.

DI GILLETT [Host] (33:11)

But it is challenging. That’s what got you down the pool following that black line. It’s same drive.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (33:17)

It is that same drive. And I think as well, Di, knowing that I had a lot more to offer as well. And the challenge that I had there is when you’re in the police, the only thing that matters is your time in the job. So you could have done amazing things outside of the police force, but none of that really seems to count against

you the work that you’re doing there. So I could say, you know, I’ve worked in television, I have been a, you know, a near Olympian, I’ve won, you know, international gold medals. This is the person that I am. This is the discipline that I have. This is what I’m the competency I’m bringing to this role. But none of that matters because you enter the world and you enter the police force as a probationary constable, the lowest person on the ladder. ⁓ And you are based on, you know, how well you respond, but also how well you adhere

to rules and hierarchy. And I’ve always found that very difficult. So I was probably a bit of a square peg in a round hole for quite some time.

DI GILLETT [Host] (34:20)

⁓

That’s an interesting thing because in most of our careers what we’ve done is recognised as the amalgam of who we are. That’s a bit of a unique scenario where it’s like we don’t give a toss. You are only the entity that you are in this job and your history counts for little if nothing.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (34:35)

Yeah.

Absolutely. You are valued based purely on your time at rank. So you you go through the ranks, you become a constable, a senior constable, a leading senior and sergeant and above. And the respect goes up ⁓ at a concurrent level to your rank. ⁓

So, you you could be a senior constable and have a lot of respect, but you’re always at the mercy of your superiors and what they think. And I think one of the challenges that I had was I value people on, you know, their ethics, their integrity, how they behave, all of the things that we should look at and say, you are a person worth following. And there are many great people in the police just like that. But there are also people who really enjoy, you know, the rank and form and hierarchical structure.

Yeah It is it is and there’s a lot of people that perhaps I didn’t feel deserved that level of respect which yet

DI GILLETT [Host] (35:34)

It’s a place to hide.

which will

be the same thing that our defence forces suffer with it, these overtly hierarchical structures have reason and they have flaws, clearly.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (35:55)

That’s right. They’re imperfect. Possibly a system that needs reshaping in the very near future.

DI GILLETT [Host] (36:01)

Yeah, the police force though was where the first intersection with cyber safety really came onto your radar. What were you seeing that became the drip feed to what was the next step in your career?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (36:23)

Yeah, there were a couple of different incidents. you know, many people listening might remember the beautiful Charlotte Dawson, who was a famous celebrity here in Australia, who died by suicide. And I was fortunate enough to know her through a period of time in the lead up to her death, where she was being quite seriously trolled and harassed by different people on the internet. And

Personally, I believe, you know, that was perhaps a contributor to her mental ill health at that time. So her experiences there really woke me up, I guess, to the impacts of online environments on our physical world. ⁓ But around that time as well, I had a suicide negotiation with a young girl up at the Gap. ⁓ And she was up there because she had been cyber bullied quite significantly. And I remember this conversation with her

It was like a penny drop moment because I just, didn’t know a lot about social media. I’ve got to admit to you at the time, like it was 2012, I think Instagram had been around for two years. I knew a bit about Facebook, but that was about the extent of it. And I realized that a situation that had happened online for this young girl had literally brought her to a cliff’s edge where she felt like her life was not living, not worth living anymore.

And I just wanted to do more about that. I remember at the time, you know, my wife and I were considering going through IVF and so we were thinking a lot about kids and what that could look like. And I just had this moment of just internal grief and distress that if this ever happened to my child or anyone that I knew, you know, I just don’t know how I would have handled it. And so,

I didn’t see a lot being done in that space. And because I’d been working in schools at the same time as a youth liaison officer, I started getting asked to come in and talk about this to the kids. I was asked to teach the staff. I was asked to talk to the parents and there just wasn’t enough education out there. So I started a side business, which I’ll take my hat off to the police. They allowed me secondary employment to start this business.

And I did both for a period of time and was really fortunate to meet a couple of other fantastic, powerful women in my business partners, Jordan Foster and Taryn Wren. And we created a online safety business that still operates today. ⁓ Working in about 500 schools across Australia. It’s one of the biggest online safety education businesses across the country. And it was acquired by an organization called Coria back in 2020.

that’s sort of what led me into the world of technology. ⁓ And, you know, they’re a safety tech organization and they create fantastic tools for schools, but also parents to help manage online time for kids. And so, yeah, it sort of was a very random ⁓ segue into the world of tech in many ways, but something really driven by self-belief. And again, that need for meaningful work and to make an impact and a difference. ⁓

So yeah, just followed that gut instinct, I guess.

DI GILLETT [Host] (39:36)

Yeah,

and as you say, you weren’t a tech person, but it was the awareness of what was happening in that space. So with that in mind, do you think our recent, ⁓ I’ll call it really a global trial of taking younger children offline is effective or will be effective?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (40:00)

This is a very big question, Di. What I will say is I think it’s an excellent first step. think that the ⁓ social media ban or the delay did what many of us in this space for many years have been trying to do, which is draw attention to the issue that is causing critical harm to our kids in many ways. What this ban does though is it kind of segments kids off a portion of the internet while leaving

a lot of the rest of the internet wide open. And, you know, it’s great for younger kids perhaps who are not on social media in the first place or whose parents have, you know, been able to action, you know, keeping them off it for a period of time. But what we know about kids is that when they are banned from something, and I certainly was this kid as well, you might have been too, you will find a way around it.

DI GILLETT [Host] (40:55)

Yeah, I think that’s right.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (40:57)

What happens when you find a way around it and you’re not meant to be there is if something happens that’s bad.

DI GILLETT [Host] (41:03)

No safety net.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (41:04)

No safety net and you’re not going to ask for help because you don’t want to get in trouble. so what it does is drive down help seeking behavior. And that is the single biggest protective factor for kids when it comes to online environments is being prepared to say something’s happening. I need help and I need help from a trusted adult who I know will be able to help rectify the situation in some way. So, you know, there’s a real divide about this ban.

And I think it’s really unnecessary. think people are being put into the for camp or the against camp. And I think we just need to say, look, it’s here. We have to deal with it. It’s a great first step, but we need to look at a more holistic solution, not just banning them from one section of the internet when we know significant online harm happens in many other darker places that they’re accessing at the moment too.

DI GILLETT [Host] (41:56)

Yeah, and

you’re so right. I was reflecting on a childhood story in my own home the other day and I was a horse rider from age four, but I never was allowed to go riding on my own and I didn’t like sleeping in. And my parents used to hammer up literally a woolen picnic blanket over the window to make it darker. And what I used to do at five in the morning was pull the corner out.

shimmy my way out the window, walk up to the hill where my pony was. I was too little to get on and saddle it on my own. So I used to use a milk crate, but I could sneak out, shimmy out the window, go riding and be back in bed to be woken up at seven o’clock and say, hey, it’s me. And all the things that could have gone wrong in that two hour window, because I’d been told I wasn’t allowed to do something, but I was.

That was half the appeal. Let’s see if I can do it without getting caught. I mean, that is human nature.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (43:00)

It

is human nature. It’s exactly right. And I think when it comes to kids in technology, you know, they’ve got the time and the motivation, you know, this is their world. And the means. Like how often are we the ones that say, darling, can you fix the internet for me? Or can you help me make my computer work or whatever it might be? These kids.

DI GILLETT [Host] (43:09)

and the main

The younger they are, the more tech savvy they are. That’s exactly right.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (43:25)

They are. So, you know, we’ve got to be realistic about what this ban can do, but also importantly, the unintended consequences that happen as a result of that, which is that they find themselves in much more dark and dangerous places on the internet that are far less regulated, talking to chatbots that might encourage self harm, ⁓ you know, spending time on games where they’re really, unfortunately, learning about

toxic masculinity and misogyny or the manosphere, know, these community forums that they’re on. Social media is harmful. I don’t think there’s much to deny that, but it’s like a piece of Swiss cheese. There’s holes everywhere and we need to look at it more holistically.

DI GILLETT [Host] (44:10)

Yeah. So where does this intersect with what you’re doing with your business now, First Movers? Is this in the same sweet spot?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (44:18)

Yeah, well, I think first movers is essentially a leadership philosophy. And it’s really based on my belief that a lot of us in life, particularly women and girls, we’re kind of can

conditioned to wait, ⁓ know, wait until someone else tells us something is okay or wait for someone who’s perhaps more qualified. There’s a lot of situations, I guess, where we hesitate and First Movers is really about being a call to action to stop waiting for the signal and remember that you can actually be the signal yourself in terms of the systems and ⁓ I guess processes that affect our lives that no longer fit the future.

DI GILLETT [Host] (44:58)

Is

metaphor for your own life?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (45:00)

could be. I think it is, you know, I knew that I wanted to expand my work beyond kids, you know, I’ll always work in terms of digital safeguarding and young people. But what I started to see was, you know, equal damage happening, particularly to women and girls when it came to online environments. what I can teach and what I can share, I guess, is what I feel has helped me be successful, which is to, you know,

I’m not saying everybody needs to run out and do whatever they want, but…

If you see a solution or you think that you have an idea that’s worth hearing or you know, there’s a system that you think you can reshape. Don’t wait for someone else to come up with that idea. Believe in yourself enough to step forward and be the first to go first. ⁓ You know, it is about thinking through. It’s not about being reckless. ⁓ But I guess my work in First Movers is that ethos and it’s particularly targeted, I guess, in terms of themes and content around technology, gender.

youth and culture. Those are sort of the four areas that I specialize in. ⁓ But I think, you know, the digital world at the moment is amplifying gender bias, inequality. And if we don’t start to reshape it, if we don’t have more women in tech, if we don’t have safety by design embedded ⁓ in these these types of technologies, then we’re going to find ourselves in a really problematic situation in the next couple of years. You know, we saw recently in January,

the GROC put her in a bikini scenario where the GROC chatbot on X was able to create nude images of thousands and thousands of women and girls and create image-based abuse. Now that chatbot at one point, I think it was on the 8th of January, was getting 6,000 requests an hour to nudify women and girls. There were 3 million women and girls total that were impacted.

around 23,000 images of child abuse material were created as a result of that. ⁓ And so, you know, these are significant harms that impact people in the real world.

DI GILLETT [Host] (47:13)

against the gender

consequences of AI.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (47:17)

It is. And we need to understand that, you know, there are things we can do, but we have to understand how it impacts people in the first place. And what we’re seeing is, you know, when women stick their head up from the pulpit, when they want to become leaders, when they want to be, you know, if they’re amazing athletes, you know, if they’re high profile, if they’re journalists, for example, they are targeted even more severely. If you’re a politician.

DI GILLETT [Host] (47:44)

any public image position.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (47:46)

100%.

And so, know, whoever has the visibility owns the narrative and the online world allows us to have a voice and a voice of influence. And what happens when women are suffering these sorts of online harms is they refrain from participating. There’s a phenomenon called the silencing effect, which means that women don’t fight back. just withdraw from platforms. They withdraw from public life.

⁓ And that’s not a situation I’m prepared to cop, to be perfectly honest with you. And so I want to do everything that I can to try and make sure that these systems are designed in a way that is equitable and safe for women and for girls and allows equal opportunity for a future for all of us.

DI GILLETT [Host] (48:31)

That’s admirable work, Yas. My question though around AI is given AI’s learning from everything that’s out there in the ether, can we train out the bias that’s already existed in society for so many generations that AI is a level playing field for everybody?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (48:58)

It’s a really great question. If I had the answer, I’d probably be very rich woman. But I think, you know, in the end…

We’ve got we have systems that perhaps we can cleanse in terms of data. We have businesses that can choose more ethical data sets that have gone through checks and balances. Can we totally rewrite history? Probably not. But I guess that next step is understanding that each and every one of us has the capability to apply a critical thinking lens to the things that we’re seeing, to challenge and call out bias, to correct it, to take those small steps.

each of us as individuals can take that has scale when we actually action them. ⁓ So I guess, you know, is there a perfect solution to that? No. But the day that we stop trying, we may as well give up. think that’s right. We’ve got to keep pushing.

DI GILLETT [Host] (49:51)

So what’s the title of the book that’s about to come out?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (49:55)

Oh gosh, it’s still a work in progress. haven’t got the actual title. No, it’ll be around August, July, early August is what I want. Working title is sort of dancing around the art of going first, which is the same title as the keynote that I do a lot as well. You know, is it an art form? I don’t know. I think, you know, it could be.

DI GILLETT [Host] (49:58)

for the release date.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (50:21)

And I think that there’s tangible lessons that each and every one of us can apply to our own lives. It’s about women, about inclusion, about courageous action. And I guess, you know, always that first mover ethos of, you know, making sure that we don’t wait for the signal. Remember that we are the signal when the world needs to change.

DI GILLETT [Host] (50:40)

Brilliant. Is there, and I did mean to ask you earlier, is there a pin up first mover that you look to as aspirational mentor, exemplar?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (50:55)

I have many, I guess. really, ⁓ well, I actively surround myself with women who believe in themselves, who want to live a big life, who are chasing dreams and have ambition and goals, but also are cheerleaders for each other. you know, if I have a great group of people like that, but if I think about the OG first mover, the one that really taught me to chase my dreams.

you know, it probably is my nanny June, who has passed away now. But she was, you know, an incredible rule breaker, status quo shaker, amazing woman in the 60s, an entrepreneur, ⁓ overcame a troubled marriage ⁓ to create the very first gourmet sandwich store underneath the ASX building in Sydney city.

DI GILLETT [Host] (51:45)

There you go,

there’s a bit of history.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (51:48)

No,

she used to say she sold fruits to the suits because she used to put pineapple and cranberries on sourdough bread and make these crazy concoctions, but everybody loved her. And she always used to say, you know, never let anyone tell you who you are. You chase your dreams, you go for them. ⁓ And I’ve always believed that from a very young age. so I have her to thank for that as well as my mom and the rest of the women in my family.

DI GILLETT [Host] (52:11)

Yeah, fantastic. Couple of quick questions to wrap up. What’s your superpower?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (52:16)

Yes.

gosh. I think I’m pretty good at connecting with and understanding people quickly and I trust my instincts and I trust myself to move on them.

DI GILLETT [Host] (52:36)

Yeah. What’s a phrase that defines you?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (52:40)

I live and die by the saying that action beats good intention every day of the week. I think that, you know, that’s how confidence is built. You know, it’s not a prerequisite, it’s a result of taking action.

DI GILLETT [Host] (52:52)

Yeah. And what was the most valuable life lesson that underpins who you are today?

YAS LONDON [Guest] (52:59)

Most valuable life lesson, that in life there’s always someone who needs to be the first to go first, so why not you?

DI GILLETT [Host] (53:07)

Yeah, beautiful. You were always going to start First Movers, Yas. That was always going to be the name of one of your business ventures.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (53:15)

I think it was. It’s taken me a long time to get here though, Di. I think, like I said, I’m interested in passion. It feels like I’ve lived a very big life.

DI GILLETT [Host] (53:22)

Hey, that’s not a long time.

in front of you to do more.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (53:28)

But I’m excited about it. That gut instinct, you’ve to listen to it. And there’s the highs and lows, obviously, of any entrepreneurial journey. But I know that this is the impact that I want to make on the world and on women to have that self-belief and that just go get them attitude. Because I think women should rule the world.

DI GILLETT [Host] (53:49)

There you have it. Well, the power of women title might suggest we could be in the same, on the same vein. exactly. Well, thank you. It’s been a great conversation joining me today. I know we’ve jumped around a little bit. We’ve been cyber, we’ve been cyber security, we’ve been bullying in the workforce, we’ve been identity, we’ve been resilience building through.

not necessarily always getting what we want in life. But we’ve covered a whole lot of aspects that I think still come back to the individual aspect of building resilience, building strength, building self-belief. And these are the types of conversations that I think we need to have more and more of. And I’m the next generation up from you. I’m in the baby boomers and I’m not sure we had as much of…

of the role models as your generation have to look to and hopefully we can all help each other because I think this intergenerational mix of knowledge and learning and connection is what makes it so much better to move forward together.

YAS LONDON [Guest] (55:04)

Yeah,

absolutely. I couldn’t agree more, Di. We’re all in this together. Got to give each other the leg up that we need.

DI GILLETT [Host] (55:10)

Exactly. Fantastic.

Thanks, Yas. Until next time.