Discovering The Formula For High-Level Achievement With Kate Roffey

Intro slow down you know every everyone's on a race so i was like every young person that's you know got some capability and aspiration i was on a race to the the ceo chair and i got there fairly young and i went oh this isn't the best chair in the house really is it so again i was too young and i look back now and i know i was too young to do that because it wasn't about understanding what it meant to be a ceo it was again about the concept of i've finally made it i'm successful because i've made it to that chair and you're not going to get there quickly i mean i'm relatively young to to be where i'm at you're relatively young to be where you're [Music] [Music] welcome back everyone to another episode Welcome of the few podcast uh with me boo and the awesome sean shawnee still hey sean hi mate how are we i'm good mate i'm just thinking one thing we haven't celebrated yet is our uh through the roof top five percent of podcasts globally inside of 12 months and we're very that's pretty this is episode 48 maybe 47 48 i think roughly so it's going really really well so clearly the the um uh the stories uh people's stories of their journeys and and things are really like hitting home and landing with with the audience which is awesome to hear we must have some pretty awesome listeners out there as well who are recommending and sharing the words so speaking of legends uh and champions i think today we've got like what you'd have to define as one of the biggest champions in like the last 160 years i mean we're we're talking about setting the bar extremely high and stepping into an environment that hasn't seen a lot of success for a long time and this year is the year to have this conversation because for the first time in a long time melbourne uh won the afl grand final melbourne davidson for those of you tuning in from around the world nfl fans mlb nba you name it this is this is a big deal so with no further ado we have the president of the melbourne football club on the broadcast today uh kate rothic kate thank you so much for joining sean and i in the future podcast today i look absolutely decided i'm just it's such an exciting year for us it's such an exciting year for me and what could be better than being with you two on the field fantastic now welcome kate great to have you on the blog i couldn't do anything about yeah probably not not not on a uh whatever it's today what teams what's today monday it's all good it seems to me it seems that we do a lot of this stuff where you're looking at your tv screen your monitor or your camera you can't really tell what's going on but uh now that was a very rousing introduction there and absolutely uh um yeah 160 years in the club's history and a couple of firsts obviously the first premiership this year uh and only a few months what's a month another half ago or something now and um also the first female president in the club itself now i'm gonna you know boo loves it how i just tended to just go straight for the jugular but i wanted to wanted to kind of dive straight in kate and say how difficult was it stepping into that role of 160 years for the being the first female to take on that role within the club did you find resistance uh did you feel you were welcomed with open arms like how did that play out yeah look it's an interesting process Kates role on the AFL Board i've been on the board for for eight years and i think that's a really critical part of this i mean it's a for those who are listening around the world i mean you won't even know what australian football um is but it's a really it's a huge huge sport here it's a huge machine and you've got to understand how it works that every sport is is different in this machinations but the afl is so big and the machinations are so complicated that i really needed that time um i find now as president i really need that time on the board and as part of the organisation to actually understand what was required i i've spent a couple of years as vice president and then i was actually asked so our presidents are elected by the rest of the directors of the board and we're all elected by our membership as directors so i was asked to step up and take on the president's role by my other directors who until just last week we're all men i have just brought another a female onto the board so there's now two females on the board but it's an industry that historically has been incredibly male dominated but it is changing and i know i have the support of of those men in my club and i don't just remind my directors i mean my ceo who's a man our head coach who's who's a man they all support me not because i'm a female but because i actually know what i'm doing i have a an elite sports background i have a background in governance i have a background in big development of multi-million dollar and billion dollar facilities and they're the things that they're looking for in particular in our president and and i fit the bill i will have to say that when i was asked to step up i did immediately say or let me think about it and i did take time to think about it because they are such enormous roles and it's bigger than being a president of a club or a chair of a board because afl is so important in this country and in particular in victoria and at melbourne we wrote the rules of this game and and as you say and we haven't won a premiership for 57 years and we're the oldest professional sporting club in the world so there was a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation around the club but um yeah i feel like i'm fully supported but i also feel like i'm fully skilled and capable to to hold the role and i think that's really important you have to feel that you're ready and that you're confident and comfortable to be able to do it ten years ago i wouldn't have been a very good president of any club um afl club because i didn't know what i know now so i notice also that a lot of the roles that you have played and are playing a moment are quite you know high level leadership or advisory or you know um strategic roles and and would that be the same then so 10 years ago you probably wouldn't have been able to go down that path but now you've kind of been drawn to that and what is it that does draw you to those types of roles i think the strategy thing is something i've always done so i'm also i'm very Kates mindset good at jigsaw puzzles and pulling things apart and putting them back together so that's where my natural mindset is but in terms of um saying when you're ready to be a president and i think it's more about understanding the amount of pressure that there are in these roles the the fact that it's not about me it's not about any one person at this club we collectively have to do things we're all links in a chain and if you start sitting there thinking oh this is your opportunity or this is you know my opportunity then you're not going to do a very good job i don't think and i'm mature enough and and sensible enough now to know that it's a huge i mean these are voluntary roles it's a huge job to do and you have to be skilled at it you have to be capable you have to be aware that the big target is sitting on my back every time we do something good or bad great you get the the accolades and the congratulations but when you when something goes wrong the target's on your back so you have to be aware that not everyone's going to love you 100 of the time and that's a maturity thing and i think you grow and develop with that maturity over time and sure might i've said yes 10 years ago i probably would have said it yes quicker than what i do now because i don't know what i do know now but i certainly wouldn't have been as as good at executing the role i don't think as as i hopefully will be now 57 years kate i mean that's almost like just getting used to losing or getting used to it and and not having winners dna what was the challenge taking over the mantle as president and trying to and literally winning in the first year like click yes it's almost um and i spoke to um supporters when i first took over and i also spoke to a group of supporters on friday and i said you we have to believe and and you're 100 right we had almost fallen into a culture of not believing and accepting failure and accepting that so long as you go out and you play okay that's enough and eight years ago we really went through a transformational change of saying no we have to change this club from the roots right back up and so we did everything we changed our list we changed our coaching stuff we changed our ceo we changed our um head coach and we really went back to a process of saying that we are going to be terrible i remember my head coach coming in one of my first board meetings and saying heads up folks if we're going to do this properly we are not going to win a game for the next three seasons now anyone who's out there listening i know the cleveland browns can probably feel very strongly for me you know there's a lot of a lot of teams out there that just have been through that thing where they just don't believe and no one believes they ever will and we must certainly were in that position but we believed as a internally and as a club that we had put all the pieces in place the last bit was just getting that culture right and that selflessness and so many people who've watched the afl and the way we conducted ourselves as a club have said there's this absolute team first club first attitude and that's really the cultural thing that has gelled in the end it's not about any one of us it's about everyone knowing their role and playing their role in and when you do that and you can execute um to a relatively high degree then you see what happens in the grand final where you have a team that just comes out and absolutely just you know not just smashes them they absolutely crash you know crash all through the finals crash bangs smash you know this this team of players just annihilated the opposition in in games where you know they usually fought out you know ten points six points one point you know we're beating them by 50 plus points it was just quite astonishing but it's all built on that culture and belief i think as you say there it's that it's that re you have to go to rebuild the foundation of just like like anything if you're going to knock a building down the biggest part to rebuilding the building is digging the hole and building the foundation and then build the new building on top of and you can't start building on top of it until the foundation's right and that to me goes you know across into any type of business you know a sporting team is a business it it's it has the same sort of moving parts you know like you've got your your team members and they're employed by the club and your coaching staff and all support staff and admin and all of that it's a business the same as any you know whether someone's got a shop down the road with five people in it or or a giant you know multinational that's got hundreds of thousands of people and it's the same same thing and i've seen it you know time and time again you look at even big companies like apple they had to basically go back and rebuild their foundation to be able to then get back and be competitive again in the marketplace so i love that another analogy or that that sort of foresight to actually go you know what we're going to suck for a period of time but if we don't do that we're never going to win anything we're going to be just on the same same stuff every single year it really takes a lot of courage Cutting corners and how many people cut corners how many people say i'll just renovate my house instead of going just not this happened to me i'm going to renovate on just that a bit because you know the cheaper or whatever my builder came to and he said just knock it down he said knock it down we'll have it back up quicker than you know and he said but there's no point you've got half of it with you know concrete new concrete stumps from the other half are old bricks you know that are crumbling and whatever in 80 years old so we always try to cut the corner because we think ought to be quicker might be a bit cheaper or whatever but in the end you know you just don't get the same results and many many clubs have tried to buy apprenticeship or buy in big players to win and it's just because in the end it comes down to culture we all have players we we rank them in afl from one to seven seven being you you're absolutely your best and all your team's never going to be all sevens you you're gonna have fours you're gonna have fives you might have some threes but like everything you you have to maximize the weakest link otherwise you know you you can't you can't pay grade for those cracks so it's going back and saying you're you're you know you're a four but you still play a critical role and seven you've got to step up and actually you know do a little bit more to help you help your players around you who may not have the same natural ability or experience as you do and it's so it is a big decision to actually go back and say start from scratch and rebuild it but it's great for me because i look at it now and go we're at the start of our we're at the start of our journey not not the end of the 57 year drought we're actually at the start of what i hope is a 57 year you know flood of premierships and that's i think it's that whole thing that people say you know it takes a minimum of 10 years to become an overnight success you guys have gone back to the foundations rebuilt them again it looks like oh all of a sudden demons have come from nowhere look at this they've you know they've won the premiership after 57 years uh i think i might have said 160 before i meant 57 but yeah the the thing still that's a that's a no that's more than my mine and boo that's more than our lifetime you know um it's it's a very very long period of time to not have that i know that um in a couple years ago when i was in sydney we were going for canal sharks and that was their first um premiership in uh in i think it was 50 something years as well 50 yeah and the local community just went ballistic because they'd never seen anything like it for so long and um and what did it mean to the club to to to get that win after 57 years how important was that for the club Winning a premiership it does we obviously were unusually in perth playing because um all premierships have played grand finals played here at the mcg in melbourne but because of covered we're in perth and i was over there with west coast who've won recently one premiership and their their president their club came after me said it will change your club if you win will absolutely change your pub there's a sense of belief there's a renewed sense of pride there's a sense of uplift and fur it was interesting because um those overseas probably have heard that melbourne was the most locked down city in the world during covert we spent two years in our houses and i think the whole thing of melbourne winning we carry the melbourne name the names that are synonymous with with our sport with afl the ronda rouseys the norm smears jimmy steins robbie flowers um neil dennis they're melbourne names and and so many people wanted melbourne to be a strong team they wanted melvin to be successful not just because it was about winning the afl but it was like succeeding in the face of all this adversity that the city had been through in in lockdown and there was just it wasn't just melbourne supporters who i in fact had bulldog supporters ringing me and saying i'm a bulldog and i know we're playing in the grand final but i really hope melbourne win because it gave such a sense of you can overcome and i think as you said children you know it is a big decision to go back and rebuild from scratch but if you do it and you just persist with it it isn't a journey overnight it's eight years in the making it's really one of those one of those stories that get turned into a movie because there's so many unbelievable moving parts that in isolation you wouldn't think of much of it but when you put it all together it's like we're going to be seeing kate raffy in the melbourne victory movie in about five or six years okay there will be a lot of ted lasso fans out there i know because so someone in fact someone else stopped me yesterday and said uh not only did i think i looked like rebecca out of ted lasso but they say this is the real ted lasso story this is the the club that's you know that people say it's gone from basket case to premieres what happened well it wasn't an overnight journey it's been a lot of a lot of work from a lot of people but you can do it you just have to have the goal the strategy and persist yeah one of the things that i don't know because i was born in melbourne born and left there uh i think i was in primary school someone left there and we left opposite the essendon bombers stadium and uh it was just fanatical i remember it now how fanatical people are about the afl so if you're from another country we don't understand um the afl it is it is kind of like european or south american football uh it is very much like that so you know having that association that melbourne after being and i know i've got a lot of clients in melbourne in my inner circle group they've been they've been they've suffered so badly in business because of these lockdowns and stuff um that to have the team that melbourne team actually win it i think as you said it's got a broader meaning to the melbourne community broader melbourne and victorian community than just you know oh that's my team or it's not my team you know as you can see there's appreciation from other teams too absolutely it's um it's really an extraordinary thing to be part of i don't really understand what Whats next we've done or what it means um it's different when you're the president or part of the entity you sort of go oh thank goodness we've done that now what's next well we've got our film and other things they keep moving that's right i think probably six hours six months after i finished as president president of my club i'll go oh wow that's what we did but i have to say as we're coming out of lockdown and being able to go out and about war i had to come here um at my house you know for a visit she stayed with me for a while and people just kept traipsing through the house you know from 11am till 1am just so they could have photos and touch the cup and and sit around and talk about it it means that much to people grown men will cry when one of our former club captains todd barney at lunch on friday just talking about it again his son plays with the team now and his premiership player um todd started crying just you know sitting at the front of the room doing a q a that's how much it actually means to to people it's just the most extraordinary thing it's the most extraordinary thing to be part of but we're on a journey we haven't finished yet so there's still a lot of work to do it's warming up absolutely so kate this is obviously a super purposeful thing to have achieved right like this is almost once in a lifetime stuff and one of the things that are recurring in the few that come onto the show is they live purposeful existences so before this what we what were you doing like what was kate's purpose in life i mean you're you're very accomplished but somewhere in there you're at university and had to get your first job and what was it about you that enabled you to lift into some of these really important roles culminating in the first female president in 160 years first premiership in 57 years what what shaped that journey yeah it's strange i don't really know i've just lived to live my life but i think one of the things that i always i get What shaped that journey bored easily so i always want to be doing something new something different something that hasn't been done before but i think the biggest thing for me is um you know i grew up on a farm i ride horses my dad's a builder so i make um furniture now find handmade furniture in my spare time and i would be quite happy if i could do that live on my farm and ride horses all day and and make furniture and play the guitar and i wouldn't have to be president of the football club and i think that's one of the things is i love doing and these roles are so important and they're challenging and they're challenging for me mentally and they stimulate me but they don't define me as a person i'm not defined by the fact that i'm the president of the melbourne football club i'm very proud to be and i think when you're not out there looking to say oh that's that's what i have to be because that's the big goal that's what's going to determine my success then all of a sudden these things become really fascinating interesting things and and your journeys on your your path they're all like overnight stops at cafes in your journey of life and each one's different and each one's you know i've had a great meal there and that was a fantastic stop and something really interesting there's always something else to to go on and and do and like i say because if i wasn't doing this i'd be doing something else and you know i might not be talking on a globally significant podcast like the few but i'd still be doing something interesting and and useful and whatever it is and so i think that's part of the thing is i just sort of i am the right person right time right place and if i see those opportunities i say yes um and i think that's probably the thing some weird doors have opened for me but when i've looked at them i've just said i have no idea why it's saying walk through that door but my gut says walk through it so off you go in and walk through it and you know to be honest six months either way you could end up not in this position you could end up in a completely different sphere of life in completely different situations so it just but from the inside looking out it's an opportunity that you probably made a decision to make a life change to do and i by the way take the pressure of all the losing prior to women absolutely yeah and it's not luck because you do like i said you've got to do the things to put yourself in a position where you've got the skill set and the capabilities to be president of the football club it's not a not an easy job you have to um whatever to be a fighter pilot you've got to do your training you don't just jump in and go this would be this will be fun uh so you put yourself in a position through your experiences and your lived experiences as well as your um working life you put yourselves in positions to be asked to do these things or to be capable and confident enough to do them you know i always say to young people who say mentoring i haven't got the perfect job i've got the perfect job and you know i'm 50. and so that takes time to to come across everyone's on a race to get somewhere but like i say you've got to develop the skills and the wisdom and the knowledge to be good at doing these things when you take them on too young and i was way too young when i was on you know executive roles uh you don't know what you need to know to actually be a good leader yeah you don't yeah i guess my statement is that now i'm old enough to know that i don't know it all which is uh which is obviously wasn't the case for a while there when my ego was steering the ship but again one of the the common traits in in everyone that we bring on the few is the thing about saying yes and then figuring it out later but also using your your gut using your instinct and your intuition or whatever you want to call it that thing that says my head's going oh i'm not sure but if your gut's going you know what open that door you know try that give it a go because often it's those ones where you you so what iphone is ones you surrender to that are going to give you the best outcome and and often surprise you as you get to that destination you wanted but the path is very very different to what you anticipated and another one is is about i wanted to ask you a question about legacy you know like a lot of the times in these conversations again it is there's purpose there's also the purpose has a i suppose a longer-term impact or consequence which which you know call it legacy in this sense how important is legacy to you and what do you what do you want to be known for you know once you're when you're not here anymore what do you want to leave behind yeah i know look that's i get asked this a lot i find it a bit of a strange question because it's not what i think What is Kates legacy i've got to be i have to be remembered for something or doing something i've got um things with talking about football club there are things that we have to get done uh we've got a facility to to get built and funded so that's the critical thing and hopefully when i finish that will if not be fully built it will be yeah under construction so that's that's my job um is that the achievement the legacy no it's the job that i've got to do and i'll walk away and hopefully that'll be done but it doesn't need my name on the front of it and you know it doesn't um need to be my legacy it's that's what i'm here to do for at this point in time and whoever comes after me will have another job that they've got to do so i think you know like i say we're all links in the chain and it's not about my legacy this is why i've been asked to do this job now and so that's what i've got to do legacy for women or people without the confidence to to to be what they what they want to be i find if i'm talking to to kids that want to be fighter pilots for example one of the things they always say is oh i'm not good enough i'll never be able to do that it looks like it's too hard what about your legacy in terms of mentoring oh absolutely and again i sort of think of that as it's part of the i mean i'm given an enormous opportunity to to have a platform to help others people say what's the best thing about having these sorts of roles is the fact that you can be a role model you can make a difference and i use this platform enormously to particularly um talk about um equity and gender issues and um socioeconomic status and all sorts of groups that are either disenfranchised or marginalized these are great opportunities to to bring that awareness and to be better i mean we just have to be better in these spaces across the board so i gained but i see that as a part of this job and i see it as a great opportunity and i hope that i get a lot of you know like you a lot of young people come on and particularly young women and dads come up and say my daughter you know she had a photo or whatever she wants to be like you and i said no don't do more than me because i'm i'm benefiting from the you know the fabulous work of so many women who had a much harder time than i did i'm benefiting from the the path that they've bought because i didn't have to go back to scratch and and cut through the undergrowth that they've cut through so i'm doing my bit now so let's say to the people who are coming after me do more you can do more than i'll get a sofa but you can do more and that's a really you know again it's a thing of i'm a living part of this link and one day i won't be anymore but there'll be others who who carry on the work and continue to be links in the channel i always sort of think legacy's a definitive thing that that it ends and as long as i'm alive i hope that i'll always be some link in the chain helping in some way to drag it up the hill as i get a bit older i'm not going to be as effective at dragging it up the hill obviously but you know they're things that i just think we're all living parts of this this mechanism that we've got to keep giving while we can and keep being a part of this this chain and this motion of dragging things you know to a better place i don't think that's fantastic and just fyi my daughter had played her very first game of afl uh yesterday and for her first year of high school she's only 12. like just to see the passion that she has and finally because i talk to her about the stories of the people i speak to on the few and through those stories i know that she's comfortable exploring that and at her school it's only a small group of girls most of the girls play netball basketball but to see her do that and to have the opportunity to do that but most importantly love it and really get into it it's like it's fantastic you're right that would have never even 10 years ago that would have not happened no absolutely and look there's people Who is Kates role model there's names like debbie lee and and daisy pierce yeah they're the names that are synonymous with this movement too to bring women into football and to to give courage and i look at them and go there they're the real people who other pioneers and have really left a legacy and they've they've done it hard to to get there but to see yeah i know for those people for daisy and karen paxton who are still playing now with melbourne but the joy of seeing someone who's a 12 year old girl be able to keep their football for the first time or a dad like you who says you know i'm so overjoyed that my child male or female can do whatever sport they want and know that when they play that sport you're not going to be faced with this um horrible horrible tirade of negativity around the fact that you're a female playing men's sport you know that we need just i say we need to be a lot better in this space it's it's not defined by gender it's it's a sport that can be played by anyone i always talk about our afl men's and our afl winners because we are one club and we have two teams i mean streaming women's team and they're both equally important to me and i think that's really important that young women and young people and whatever sort of role model you are and there's plenty of different ones out there encourage others and not necessarily because there's only one president of the football buff at a time so not everyone's going to get to be to it but the fabulous author bryce courtney said to me once when he was doing an athletes assembly at the institute of sports i was chatting to him afterwards and he said what do you want to do and i can't even remember what it was probably be president of the olympic committee or something and all he said to me was you know what someone has to do it it might as well be you and you know it turns out it's not me doing that but i'm doing something else because i always remember someone has to step up and be president of the club so stuff they're asking me why shouldn't it they may so you know we need to give everyone more courage and confidence to have a go in whatever space they can fit because like i said not everyone can do the same thing i love that i love that reference you know that if it's got to be someone might not be you and i do see a lot in working very very closely uh with business owners in what i do is a lot of that belief around the fact that they're actually not not worthy like oh yeah but it can't be me and that's you know this whereas childhood stuff or you know be bullied at school or whatever the case was what those situations were which i had to overcome a lot of that stuff myself is it is difficult to actually imagine that but i think when i finally went you know what actually why not me why why why couldn't i why couldn't that person be me that person on stage or that person doing those keynotes or that person doing a podcast why couldn't that be me am i uncomfortable doing it to start with when i first go out there and do it absolutely but did it kill me no it didn't it actually went oh look i can't actually do it you know and we've got podcasts we've got amazing guests coming on or you know i've been just did a tour in the nt for uh for a bunch of keynotes and like this stuff you you've got to believe that it can be you that's that person i feel you know i mean and yeah do you do you see that you know i mean obviously it comes up in sport as well i mean obviously in an elite level sport that'd be something that's quite prolific amongst people with potentially big egos or lots of pressure on them to perform it's an interesting one and now just as Big egos you just hit the nail on the edge the big egos thing and i'd go back to this thing of you have to be able to do it and that's the thing there's a learning process and everything else but i always say that people say oh should i apply for this job and i'll say well i'll tell you one thing for certain um if you don't apply for it you will not get it so if you do apply for it you may not get it you don't apply for it you will not get it but i would say um it's not your decision okay someone else gets to pick who who they give the job to all you can do is apply and this is the thing that always others pick me to be president others pick us to do all sorts of things and it's very rare that you get to go out and just make your own way even if you're a public speaker others need to want to listen to you why am i on the view because you think i've got something interesting to say now your audience will determine that you know my members will determine if i'm a good president of the football club so i think that thing is no matter what you're doing when i go to someone has to be it might as well be me but i need to look really carefully at myself and reflect and say should it be me and not because i'm scared and not because i don't have the confidence to do it but do i actually really have the skill set and the wisdom and the capability and the fortitude to do this or do i just want to do it because it's a big shiny name up on the door and my ego says that would be really cool to do it so there's this thing of actually sitting there reflecting and saying um do i actually think i could do the job and i am i doing it for the right reasons and i think that's one that's used to talk about ego often gets forgotten if you're doing it for the wrong reasons you're almost desperate to not do it very well i think the magic doesn't happen right you've still got to show up you've still got absolutely all the things that jump through the hoops to be that person but i think the challenge is when people say it's never going to be me that journey never starts you don't do it small things as i think they've never applied what's the most astonishing piece of feedback you've ever had and i said when people come up to me i say it all the time and say you're so authentic you're so genuine when you're speaking about what's everyone else talking about if they're not talking about their own experiences and what they think and feel about that that's all i can speak about but nobody else can go on the journey that i've been on because no one else is the same as me so you've got to make your own journey you've got to make your own success you've got to make your own path but you've got to step out of your comfort zone and just comfort zone and start on it because otherwise you're never going to go anywhere and there's people who are happy in their little comfortable box and that's fine too because if we're all leaders we're not going to make it out the fireworks that are because we'll get crushed in the doorway trying to get there first so we have to have a spread of capabilities in the spread of roles um as well but everyone fits in their place you just have to be confident enough and willing to step out of your comfort zone and see where you actually fit i think it's it's there's people that some people happy to stay in the box of comfort zone and just be there it's those people where there's discomfort about being in the box you've got to understand you just need that little bit of extra discomfort to actually take this step out of it and then once you do you'll realize that it wasn't as hard as what you thought it was um and even if it is it's so much more rewarding than staying in your box going i don't want to be in this box anymore and feeling trapped or dissatisfied or you know not not feeling successful in your life and i don't mean success attached to financial or stuff i'm thinking feeling like a successful human being within yourself and i think that's something that's really important a lot of people don't uh identify with themselves and and i guess in that what how how do you define your level of success in your terms how do you define that and this is just as you said i thought Definition of success that's a really interesting point because my definition of success is not the same as anyone else's i i would consider myself to be a very successful person if i ran for example my farm and was able to look after horses that came from the rspca and and yeah i wrote them all day and nobody knew who i was but i was doing something like that so our definitions of success are always different but we always we see the people that have high profiles and they have those for a reason but we we attach success to them and then mistakenly we attach success to the role they hold and that's what i'm saying it's not about the name president it's not about the name ceo it's about the way you conduct yourself when you're in that role because there's plenty of poor ceos out there there's plenty of poor people in those roles getting the title doesn't make you good at what you do being good at what you do actually makes you a good person to hold that position and we constantly forget about that we all of a sudden think i've been elevated into this position now and all of a sudden i become a much better person and i know all this stuff and the world's my oyster and everything goes right and it's not because 90 of my time i spend as president trying to fix things up you know it doesn't just all go smoothly when you are in a role that's high profile but it's not a big deal you've earned it it's it's your last small win i think when you're in a role and you don't deserve it that's when you're like wow look at me i'm so awesome yes which is you know what i say all the time that's my life but uh before before we sort of start to look at uh wrapping it up i want to ask you something my entire life i've never been somebody that's ever thought about gender in terms of whether a man or a woman should have a job based on who what the gender is it's just always genuinely believed no matter who you are do the job capability where you go now obviously that's not how the world thinks so when i ask you this question i'm asking it through the lens of being deliberately ignorant so what with the work world that we're going through with all of these changes and our people and everyone losing their jobs because you know more women in the workplace what what's your perspective like what with the way that the world is becoming woke are we doing it in a way that's inclusive and good for everyone or do you have a sense that we're creating sort of animosity and tension and more extreme views about everything Women in leadership roles yeah look it's a great it's a great question and when i i ponder a lot i think again i didn't really go through the i can't do it because i'm a female but i have um i have sat there and um had been tried to be intimidated and bullied because i am a female are sitting around a board table around an executive table then it takes a lot of fortitude to actually and i've i've said this i've done my misogyny speech i've talked to julia gillard and i said i've had to do my misogyny speech i think every female in a leadership role you have to do it at some point in time where you just have had enough and you say you know no one elected you gone in this meeting and we all have a right to to speak i think it's getting better it's a process of change and i think one of those things is about education and um for example i went to a lunch yesterday and i was seeing an extra older gentleman and he said i'm one of those older gentlemen so i hope you don't mind if i pull your seat out um while you sit down i said no i don't have a problem with that but thank you for asking because someone else might and so he for him it's an education thing about it's not expected and some some people wouldn't like it but ask and then um you know through an educational process i'll try to explain to him why it doesn't matter to me i think it's polite and um others might feel offended by it so i think in this space and in particular i work with a lot of men who are in that old generation and don't they don't understand why now has become an issue to hold the door open or to offer to carry your bag and for some people it is and and some people it isn't so there's an education process to to go through and i said i always sit on the side of saying firstly don't assume that it's done in a belittling way firstly i assume you don't know um how i feel about it or you don't know what to do so i'll have a chat and let's see if we can understand why we need to change or why we need to think differently and if that doesn't work then yeah it's on with the misogyny speech but there's ways to do it and it's a process of change and i think it's a process of education and understanding i think um if we talk about the gender thing i think our men who are coming through now our younger men are a lot better because women are a lot better at actually saying that's not acceptable but remember once we get through the gender section of it then we've got to work on everything else the less able people we've got to work on our total acceptance than in inter integration there social economic status we've got to start working on this so while gender i think's going along reasonably well there are a lot of other marginalized routes and a lot of other areas that we need to start turning the same lens onto i think and saying we need to be better in all these spaces treat the person as the person that they are not what they look like not where they come from not what gender they are not their um racial background you know let's just get a better open mind at actually accepting people for who they are and what they stand for and some of those people i don't like some of those people you aren't like that's just because we're different but it's not because of their gender it's not because of where they came from it's not because of where they grew up it's because we just can't get on as people there's usually their values misalignment that that uh means that we don't quite mesh with somebody and and now the same thing as you i've never i've never even never crossed my mind it's it's about capability it's about values alignment and it's about does that person add value bring value and show up in the right way in the environment and no matter what their breed race you know what sex they are it doesn't matter as far as i've seen and i think it is shifting a lot i mean in business now for over 30 years myself and i've definitely seen a a big shift in in um and in you know i think not only the the not an external necessary external influence on well not only the external influence on women to be able to feel empowered but just seeing women actually take that step forward and going you know what i'm going to step in here like i am an equal and if there are some people that don't like that well that's just too bad The importance of role models you've got to crack through that and go you know okay you don't like me you've got the small man's syndrome or whatever you just push on through it and you go too bad i'm here and i'm going to do the best job that i can do but just fill that out there but it's getting better and like if we've got men like you who are coming through and don't see that and gradually that group will grow and it doesn't become an issue but like i said once we get there then we've got to move on to the next tackle the next um you know set of blinkers that we've got on so it's a it's going to be a never-ending piece of work i think that hopefully role models are so important no matter what you're doing hopefully you know if i can leave a legacy and at some point in time someone comes up to me and says i'm doing whatever it is because i saw you speak on a few podcasts and it really resonated with me then i've done my job i've left my legacy and you know i can go on my merry way to wherever we go next i'm happy that someone else's that's generally what happens to people that come on the fuse so you better be ready for that that's okay look it's that's it's a huge honor and it's a huge privilege to have that as part of these roles being able to actually encourage and you know inspire and motivate others because you know like i said if i can walk away and know that there's people out there that have achieved more because of something that i've said or done or whatever else it is then that's enough for me and i know that this obviously we're that's a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff on this episode i think we've ever had that much uh tongue-in-cheek pokes at ourselves with the episode but but it is right though it's it but to me it's just that leadership piece it's it's doesn't matter what role you're in you could be you know leading a kid's footy team or you could be you know a teacher leading a classroom you could be a small business owner leading a business or you could you know run a be you know leading a um you know a large organization that that's that's in the public eye and and in the end it's it's it's all leadership it's all about leadership and i mean how do you define yourself as a leader how do you um how do you believe you show up as as a leader and and inspire and communicate to other people i think one of those things he just said there is um anytime i show up i am i am How to be a leader that person that others are looking at and i think that's one of those things i always say i have bad days where i don't want to go out or i've got a headache i feel sick whatever it is but i always i know because i walk around the streets i was in beechworth which is regional victoria um just this last weekend and i was in the coffee shop and the guy who owns it said you're kate from abc and you're the president football club i'm a melbourne fan can i have a photo with you absolutely delighted to if i don't want to do that don't go outside because it's that's the story of his year he's just you know he's just had a photo with the president of the melbourne football club his team that's you know basically is playing an important role in winning this thing so i always think one of those leadership things is you're a leader wherever you go whenever you go there and if you don't want to be a leader i mean don't go outside stay at home with your family go to the farm and ride the horses and do that sort of thing so i think oh dane it's a it's a mantle um that you carry very proudly and you earn and people respect it and they can be inspired and motivated by but you carry it all the time wherever you go you carry it all the time and you're always mindful of the fact that the way i interact with you is going to make or break your week your day your year and you have got the the power to um cause a lot of damage or a lot of hurt in these roles by the way that you treat people so if you are in these roles and it is whether you're coach of the under 10's team or the president of the melbourne football club or the prime minister of australia and the way you treat someone like operates their day so be really careful about how you treat everybody because they're watching and you can get your bottom dollar but if it's not a very positive treatment of them that'll circulate around the traps a lot quicker than than a positive treatment but you carry these roles you've got to respect them and yeah showing up is a choice how you show up is a choice and what i've noticed with a lot of you know the strong leadership you know people friends and people that i um you know have in my network and stuff like that is that it's and to me myself you know there's a high number of i think it's really strong leaders that are actually quite introverted so we'll go and play with the horses or i'll you know be quite a home body at a time but when i need to step out and show up i'll show up and not perfectly 100 of the time every time but i'm close most of the time and i do it really well and sometimes i come back and go probably could have done a little bit better in that situation and what was going on there and it's always that continuous learning and as you say to me leadership is the skin that you wear it's not an act you don't show i'm going to put my leadership hat on and come in and dictate terms to everybody this is a and it's a journey to get there it's not something you can wake up i'm running right i'm going to be this leader and it's so important to be patient with ourselves but also to set who do we actually aspire to be as a process i run with with my clients is about defining that who do you aspire to be and about seven years ago i think i've said it on a couple of podcasts before i set up one that said my definition of leadership is humble authentic and vulnerable those three words had i told myself that 20 years ago when i laughed at myself thinking that they were really fluffy and soft yeah but for me i set that and then a few years later i got a massive you know indicator of that in leaving a place and had 200 comments on it and most of them had at least one of those words you know humble authentic environment i was like i'm actually showing up as this person that i aspired to be i'm not pretending or putting on an act and so it's so important and you said it before about just your authenticity this is just you whether you're at the shops or whether you're here it is the skin you wear i mean i always wherever i speak or whenever i have an engagement i always learn something and i put it in my little book and that's going in my book now leadership is the skin you wear you can't take it off if you need to take it off i go away to the farm i go away to my workshop where no one sees me and i you know kick and scream and swear if i drop something on my foot or if i fall off the horse or whatever because yeah that's your safe space where you can do it and that's a really important thing is leadership is your skin and wherever you where everyone anyone can see you then you've got to wear that skin you've got to wear it proudly and appropriately and authentically and if you're not you get caught out if you have to put your skin on and pretend to be something you're not you're bound to get caught out fairly quickly yeah it's like wearing somebody else's skin isn't it so absolutely so and clearly in your journey you've had a lot of different as you said coffee shop stops along the way and all the rest of it if you were to go back and talk to a younger version of yourself and and and impart a little bit of you know knowledge the wisdom that you've learned in your journey what would you what would you go back and say to a younger version of kate yeah slow down you know every everyone's on a Stop racing race though i was like every young person that's you know got some capability and aspiration i was on a race to the ceo chair and i got there fairly young and i went oh this isn't the best chair in the house really isn't so again i was too young and i look back now and i go yeah i was too young to do that because it wasn't about understanding what it meant to be a ceo it was again about the concept of i've finally made it i'm successful because i've made it to that chair and yeah you can't go back to the most the low stress jobs that's done yeah exactly yeah it's a it's and your bracelet everyone that tells us oh you know i haven't done this and that i'm like you're 25. you know you you're not going to get there quickly i mean i'm relatively young to to be where i'm at you're relatively young to be where you you're at and i look at it and i go i've still got at 50 i've still got 25 or 30 years left to work or do things i mean it's nearly half my life so stop racing enjoy what you're doing because so many of those things i forgot to actually stop and actually enjoy the success or actually acknowledge what i've done and and you know i spent nearly four years backpacking around the world teaching horse riding and driving dog sleds in in the lap part of sweden and getting taken off trains at gunpoint in the ukraine and they were the best years of my life because they taught me so much they made me so much a better person and everybody before i went said you'll lose your career you'll fall behind everyone you know you'll fall out of the system people will forget you i was like man you know well so be it but didn't seem to impact me all it did was make me a much better much better person because i actually went away and looked at myself and i was by myself and then traveling around the world by myself with a backpack in these places this before internet and all sorts of things i mean it was you just learn to be so self-reliant and so resilient but you reflect and you know i would never i wouldn't give up those years of traveling for anything because when people say what made you who you are um those four years have probably had more of an impact than any others in you know making me understand that there's so many different things you can do in life and all of them are exciting and while i'm doing the present the football club i'm missing other stuff you know i'm not being taken off trains at gunpoint in ukraine which was exciting um probably don't need to go through that again for the current generation them trying to understand the concept of i used to travel before the internet would be like how did you swim across seriously i had a one-way ticket to china and it was a paper ticket you know and my poor parents i look back now and think um i didn't even hear from me for weeks i mean mongolia and russia i remember using travelers checks having to use travelers checks or everything absolutely yeah absolutely we didn't have you know we didn't have credit cards i mean it was just it's nothing but it's so life-shaping i mean it's it's just such a different thing to do and had i've still just been traveling around the world now doing that i think what a great life it is so success comes in so many different forms and you know everyone's successful in their own way whether it's bringing up a great family or bringing up the next set of children that are going to go on and be presidents of their football clubs and things we're all different and we all do amazing things really that's awesome kate that's a pretty powerful way to finish off thanks for sharing uh your wisdom with our listeners it's an amazing story and i feel as we're winding up more questions popping into my head and and wanting to have this precious time to learn more so thanks so much kate for being generous yeah you nailed it in terms of people saying you're authentic that authenticity came through today i i really had a a lovely time chatting likewise thank you kate no it's been a pleasure and to everyone out there go well achieve your dreams someone has to be it it might as well be you if you're here you want advice or a mentor just call kate and that wraps up another episode of the few thank you to our partners afterburner for team building development and alignment we understand now how important it is to have the right people around you get them on board with where you want to go momentum media the largest industry publisher in the country connecting your business to the australian community icmi australia's premier speaker bureau representing the few that do fulfill their life's purpose and finally shawn's inner circle the business coaching organization for small and medium enterprises looking to make that next step thanks again for listening in and downloading today please leave a review on whatever platform you are currently listening to this podcast and reach out to our partners who can help you make the transition to the few [Music] awesome thanks so much cheers me [Music]