Apoche Production.
Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO Series. This series, we launch into the new world of brave leadership.
Happy people create happy businesses.
True emotionally intelligent leadership. I've picked up vomit once on our about our fourth flight, and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him, I can do it.
Now.
We will be joined by culture and leadership.
Experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined in the studio by the very charismatic Anthony Ryan. Anthony is currently the CEO of the Brisbane Economic Development Agency, responsible for driving the economic growth of
Brisbane City. Prior to this, Anthony was the CEO of Young Care for five years, a national not for profit organization revolutionizing the way young people with high kid disabilities live. In fact, you will find much of Anthony's resume in the space of the nonprofit sector and charities including the MEMIKI and Edmund Rice FANDAI.
Now.
I was fortunate to meet you at two charity events I'm for the Broncos and recently at the CEO sleep at for Vinnie h. I got to witness firsthand your mastery at getting people to fundraise. Anthony impressively raised over twenty thousand by yourself for the event. But Anthony, I thoroughly enjoyed doing a little bit of research on you.
I really did.
I was like, oh, oh every five seconds, starting with the fact that you actually represented Australia at the World Junior Athletics Championships and nineteen eighty eight in Canada.
That's true.
Well, we so obviously you have a passion for sport. Can you tell me a bit about your junior as an athlete.
I was playing rugby at school and the school just up the road here at school called Terrace, and I wasn't a great rugby player, but I got quite a bad injury, and so instead of playing rugby, i'd really focus on track and field. I was just going to be a hobby. And then I realized I was better at it than I thought I would be, and sort
of quickly started improving. And then came to GPS, and I think I surprised myself and won jeeps and then went on one States and then went into the Australian Australian Championships and then got selected in the Australian junior team and sort of out of the blur. Really, my coach was always there for rugby, called John Lucas's bloody legend. But we surprised ourselves or who went there, and we got a silver medal at the World Jeniors. We either
broke the world junior record in the semis. We had an amazing team that all went onto fantastic things except for myself in sport. And then in the final we ended up getting second to the United States and they broke the world junior record and the guy that was the runner there in that who ran against me ended up going on later on a couple of months later to win the Olympics a year old wow forty three eight. So I knew I was never going to be that good.
So I pretty much sort of was always a relay runner in some ways, I planted the seeds in what I did later on in life.
I was going to say so, also, I'm a beautiful fit now that you're working with Beta and obviously going to be part of the Olympics coming to Brisbane. That's obviously it feels probably very close and special for you.
Absolutely well, Bristbane Economic Development Agency where there is a support mechanism. Our work isn't really to do with the Olympics per se, but we will be supporting Okog and anyone that we can, particularly with utilizing Olympics as that hook to drive the brand of our city investment and to assist with getting those stadiums and things like that up and running when someone makes the choice and the decision to do something.
Yeah, right, exciting stuff. Now.
At the CEO sleepout that we went to a month or so ago, I was really moved by a story that you shared on stage about your relationship with a homeless man in Brisbane. You know, without having done any research on you, I just automatically since there's deep passion in you around homelessness. And then I read that there's a bit of a backstory here. So how did that all begin for you?
I was a teacher many years ago as I was teaching economics. It was an inner city school and I was totally buying away as we would come to school as a wealthy It was terrorist. I went back to teacher Terras and I said to the economics class, you walk past homelessness every day. Why do you think the street people are here? You know, some were sleeping in the same street as Terrace and in the parks and
Victoria Park, et cetera. And there was a young fella in grade elevenies and now I've become one of my mates, actually because I was a young teacher. And he said, because they're lazy, and if they got up off their ass, they could get a job, sir. And I was a standard by his answer, and so I said, who else, who else feels the same way? And every person in the class put the hand up and said, you know,
they're lazy. And so instead of getting angry and or saying that they were wrong, I wanted to challenge that because that's what teaching is. Teaching isn't about. It's allowing people to arrive at an answer themselves, particularly in those sort of profound moments of light bulb moments in life. And so from that that became a trigger for me, and I thought, Okay, well, how do I get these
kids to actually challenge their stereotypes? And so I started this program about two months later called the Street Retreat Program, where we would have an overnight experience living on the streets of South Pars overnight and instead of of serving the homeless, you're actually going to journey for twenty four hours with them, and that would challengeh stereotypes. And we started this van. On one of the first nights, I
brought that student out. His name was Gandhi, and we took Gandhi out and five of his mates, and Gandhi was sitting in the garter talking to this guy and it was the first time these terrorist guys had already ever seen anyone a homeless or not seen them, but confronted them and was conversive with them. And the guy shared with him that he used to go to a school up the road, and Gandy was going, Oh, what do you mean what we're talking about? He goes, oh,
you might not know it. It's a school called Terrace. And Gandhi at that stage when wow, are you serious? And what had happened for a series of things that had happened in this guy's life, addiction took over ended up being a semi permanent resident down in potanical gardens. And that was the moment where I started realizing the power of education. So Gandhi went from that night and we'd always finish at the end and night just sitting around and just chatting. What do you learn, what you see,
what made you feel uncomfortable, et cetera. And he shared his story and the next day at that school, we had a lineup of around about no exact eruation, about one hundred kids outside my door asking whether they could be involved in the program. And that started. It changed the culture of a school. And then and it was during that time I met a guy called Terry.
Met Terry, Yeah, wow, I love that.
Wow.
I mean, you don't seem to have any of the judgment or avoidance that people usually have when it comes to homelessness. I mean, I think at the core of it, there's something about homelessess that makes people feel afraid.
Or not want to think about it. Why is it different for you?
I mean you've said that education is a part of it, but is this anthing more?
Yeah? For sure. When I started working the homeless, like anyone, you feel nervous, You're not sure what to say. Are you going to offend? Are you thinking that they're going to judge you? Why are you here with me? Used ticking a box make yourself feel better? But the more I got to know people, particularly those who were doing it tough. And later on, when I started working in Africa and the slums over there, I also realized that these guys, and this sounds like a religious thing, but
it's not. Mother Teresa used to say that the worst form of poverty was loneliness. And when I started talking to these people, first of all, i'd look at you a little bit intrigued that you were talking to them rather than serving them a soup or serving them coffee. What we wanted to do was break that stereotype as well of service and say, no one's really serving here. We sit down and we chat, and this is going to be a place of being present to each other
own conversation. And you would see that they would relax, their shoulders would relax, that'd feel more comfortable. They'd give you eye contact. Normally they wouldn't be able to if they felt it was the dynamic, The paradigm had shifted. When they felt that, you started getting incredible stories. I used to get really angry because I knew I had that experience, and I thought, you've got to understand people's context.
But I started noticing more and more when i'd sit down with people on the streets and talk to them. How people would rush past them as quickly as they could. You'd have people walking on the other side of the street to avoid them. Now, I'm not saying every homeless person or a street person is a saint. They certainly not. But they've all got varying reasons why they're there, and the majority of them have just fallen on tough times.
And it's really going to be presents and love that will be able to interrupt what they are currently going through to move them onto something else.
I remember you telling the story about Terry. I remember that you said that you know he was quite defensive. How do you work around that to see the person inside when you get that wall up from people persistence?
Gay? Terry when I first met him, had a really bad starter. He was aggressive towards everybody. He didn't want anyone to be around him. And the day that I first met him, he hadn't had a shower, reportedly for years, even had a safety pin to hold the backside of his pants. He never took his pants off, didn't take his clothes off for the years, and he used to go to the tour through the same take the safety
pin off and so that added to his aroma. And it wasn't until I got to meet Terry and persistently talked to him about just life, and he would always tell me the f off, And over a couple of weeks, I just decided to sit down and talk to him. When I started talking to Terry, this was a broken, broken human being. You could just tell even when you were talking to him. His body language was defeated and he was, you know, his smell was really overpowering. But
I thought that what a phony I was. That I was present to everybody else, but the most difficult person that I'd met on the streets, I wanted to push off to the side. So that was sort of a little challenge to myself. And then that first night that I met him, I'll never forget this night. I really sat down and said, how are you going to Terry? Time? And f off again? And I got myself a coffee and said, I'm just sitting here. And for about the first fifteen minutes, he just sat in silence with me,
and I was uncomfortable. I think he probably wasn't uncomfortable, he was probably angry that I was there. And then he just started talking and for the next hour and a half. I think I got in less than twenty words, and he just talked, talked and talked, and I realized he was incredibly intelligent. He was manic in the way he was talking. He had this incredible memory for cars and car registrations, et cetera. The car went past and he said, he used to talk whether that car that
XGA two five seven it went past here three nights ago. Wow, this guy's got a photographic memory. Hey, I cut along story short. What I want your listeners to understand is as we built that relationship up, he finally trusted me to tell his story. And his image of his clothes it hadn't been washed. His smell was a defense mechanism. He was punishing himself for life. And he told me the story that in Melbourne he was driving a car.
And I've told this many times before. I was shocked when he said he had a car, because I had always seen him as Terry the bum Terry, the homeless guy that was telling everyone to get lost. He had a car. And then he started talking about that he was driving on an off ramp in Melbourne and realized the last minute that he was in the wrong lane and a car came into him at full force, steering whell jack knives into his body. And as he just
started describing it, Terry was back in that moment. He was no longer talking to me as someone that was with him on the streets. He was back in that car and he was having a psychotic episode, and I was just a bystander in his memory. And he started screaming in pain. We were in kid George Square once again. People walking past us seeing this must have been a
bizarre scene. And he started talking about how his both arms were completely broken, and he was staring at his hands that was sticking down and his bones were sticking out in front of it at right angles, and he was going to pain, and he was explaining the pain in his own way. And then what he did for me next, and he goes my son, my son, And
I said what he mean, Terry. He said that he had his daughter in the car, and he realized the daughter was already passed away, and so he could see her as he looked off to the side, and then he realized his son was still alive, and he went to go reach to his son and realized he was pinned by the steering wheel. So as he was explaining in his memory he was trying to rip his arms off, he was stuck, and he was talking about the pain
that he couldn't face the pain. So then he had to look back up into the real vision mirror with the realization that his son was bleeding out. He had to talk to his son before his son passed away. For me, that explained his pain, and as we got to know him a little bit more, he just turned to me at that stage, got out of his memory and basically said, I couldn't handle the pain I founded my son, and so Terry was going to be after the funeral, he was going to take his life. And
then he realized, you miserable failure of life. That's too easy. You're going to do whatever you can to be hated. And that made so he used to wear plastic bags all up and down his arm that was filled with rubbish.
Stage it just made sense. I realized that the plastic bags were there to hide his scars, and like his physical scars, and that he just didn't want to look down every morning as he woke up and said, you know that's right, I killed my kids accidentally, So that blew me away, right, that just blew me away, And I thought, how many of those people, not just homeless,
any take your blinkers off? In life, you never really understand what journey anyone's been through, and so I always think about that in any engagement that I do.
I mean, that's the second time I heard that story, and it's I can imagine how life changing that was for you. You could never look at things the same way. I remember feeling like a bit of shame when you were telling that story. That absolutely I probably walked past someone like Terry before and never considered and why do we do that like we are? I think for a lot of people, we're actually just avoiding the uncomfortableness for ourselves. So I think this is obviously a very extreme story
versus I guess some people's day to day issues. But I think what I'm hearing from you is having that cure curiosity. That's a big part of it, right.
I think one of the things that if I would ever be giving anyone a lesson in life or trying to impart some sort of advice, is that the greatest moments of my life have always taken place when I've been present to somebody else where you actually genuinely listen and take the time. There the moments of education, there are moments of wisdom, light bulb moments, moments of fun, went out on the drink. But you present to people and it's the same with the ones that you think
potentially dangerous or potentially different to us. And that's happened all over the world.
For me, amazing.
How has that part of your life is connection to people at homeless people. How's it shaped the way you do business? Because now you're in business, right, so it's quite different from being in school, and we'll go back to that, But how has that shaped things for you?
Well? I think the days of transactional sort of leadership is over. I did a leadership course a while back at Oxford. Was it online? Was I at the university physically,
but it was a great course. Did it over a long period of time, and I really started getting interested in organic leadership and the type of leader that I always wanted to be with, someone that reversed the pyramid, that traditional leadership model of the triangle and reversing that triangle and saying, if you're a good leader, really you should be looking up rather than looking down and understanding the best way of leadership is actually through relationships and presence,
surrounding yourselves by people that are better than you, smarter than you. That whole humility is important, that sense of authentic leadership. So those moments were Terry and others, or being with young mums living in horrendous property in the slums of Africa and knowing that when you're with those people, you feel that they are better people than you. That
a title is nothing really. As the CEO of any organization that I've been in, I've always knew that the moments of God and my business were always going to be when I was down at the baseline, sharing information and being with the stuff. And it makes it so much more enjoyable to work that way.
Yeah, see, to me, to do that takes a huge amount of self belief and self worth. Right, You're not trying to prove anything to anybody that I'm this big guy and I'm in charge.
Where did that start from? You born like that? Someone teach you that my.
Mom and dad were pretty amazing. My mom I was an asthmatic, really bad asthmatic, often in hospitals when I was younger, right, and my mom started up this thing called the Samaritan Committee. And I haven't talked about this ever, I don't think when I look back, it was quite extraordinary.
It was something that she just did around kidren asp Lee Wave all those areas, and it was a Tuesday on a Thursday afternoon where all of the people in those subjays were lonely would come into this one space and they'd be taught my crime, or they play bingo, or they do art, et cetera. And I used to be as an asthmatic. She'd have to take me there and there was a little trundle bit that she put
me in. I can always remember looking out to seem surrounded by these people and I'm thinking, what's she doing? But that role modeling, I think, for me, really taught me the importance of giving back and community and sharing experiences together.
I loved it, no doubt, that's.
Right, without a doubt that it came from my mum and dad.
Is it particular things that you do, Like if we talked about what your leadership style is like, is there things that you actively do to create the kind of culture that you're after.
We're doing it right now. So I'm going back into my third year, my next three year strategic plan and strategy and a page we call it. So all through it, through that, who am I to know? Really? The business on my figurehead up the top, you know, sort of sprouting out the hard work that my team is doing. So we're reversing it once again, and I'm saying to them, okay,
it's the old teacher me. I want you to tell me what we should be and I'll synthesize it and with my leadership team, so it'll be what are the five characteristics that we want to be known as a business. You go out and tell us, let's look at our elevator pitch. You tell us what our elevator pitch is, and then every department will then come in and will synthesize all that. Because no matter what happens in leadership, if it's coming from you, they won't own it, or
would they own it. But if it's coming from them from the belly, and they can see their words, their thoughts, their wisdom that's been placed into an overarching definition of what our business should be, they feel so much more proud. They feel that is a true representation of the work that they're doing, and that they feel strongly aligned to the vision, the purpose and that elevator pitch and our focus areas. Everything I do is always around that process. Now,
some people say that's weak leadership. Now, I'm not saying there's no time when that bureaucratic or that triangle leadership isn't required. If there's a fire in our building, I'm going to say them, yes, I'm not going to sit back and how do we all hopefully not smoketely that type of leadership. But the majority of the times that I speak or act within my business will be from
a position of cohesion and collaboration. And I've led that across the city right now, and I'm doing that with the highest ends of business with the better bastane alliance, which I can talk about later.
Thinking about I guess being a CEO and non for profit organizations, I think it's interesting, right because obviously your number one goal is not to make a lot of money, right And yet and a lot of CEOs that I work with or meet, they've put a very different in goal and it can sometimes overtake all the other goals. Do you think that's a big part of why you lead the way you do them, and you've got your teacher. For starters, it's been about the students. And then you've
been CEOs of non for profits. How does that help you in the business world.
When I started at BEATA, I realized that there wasn't too much difference from leading an economic development agency for basically the city and having says to all those major events and business events that we do, all the investment we do as a city to what we're doing is are not for profit. The endgame was to grow the pie. And the way I used to grow the pie at places like Young Care or Emmon Rice, it was all about building relationships and collaborating and I truly believe in
collaboration and the power story. I call it the theology of presence. And the theology of presence is when I'm sitting down with business leaders, large fortune, five hundred individuals and talking with them. They love that one on one engagement in their coffees, in their coffee and I've always thought, you never go into those things transactionally. You always go into it. What is it that we can learn from
each other that has changed the success for me? In what I've been able to do the Better Brisbane Alliance. I've talked about that before. When I got into that role, I can remember the second day going, you Phony, what the hell are you doing here? I met with one guy. It's become a bit of a role model for me,
a gy called Harvey Listen. He had a coffee with me on my second day and it was from there I realized if I was going to be successful in anything in this new role, I had to surround myself that were decision makers that were better than me, smarter than me. And eventually we got about twenty two of us altogether called the Better Brisbane Alliance, and that is absolutely catapult of the city. Reason behind that if you
start looking at Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane. Each capital city's got different personalities and Melbourne at the moment somewhat defeated. Melbourne is they're not flourished out of favor. Sydney is carnivorous, they don't trust each other, They're all clamoring over each other, whereas the superpower for our city has to be collaboration. And over the next ten years, you know, we've got the Olympics, but we've got this extraordinary runway of their
brand is changing. You know, We've got Queen's Wolf opening up in August twenty ninth. We've got these wonderful precincts like Howard Smith, Wolf's James Street districts, all of those, and the way that Brisbane has been viewed that can only happen when we collaborate. I say publicly now, death of Eager and Big on purpose, and it's worked, and
we're doing things that we've never seen. For the last twelve months, Brisbane has been named in the top fifty places in the world by New York Times Times magazine from US, which is an internationally renowned analyzer of cities, and the Sydneys and Malbands aren't even getting named in that top fifty. And I think it's down to collaboration.
I like that.
And so you mentioned that they're about feeling like a phony at some point, right, So I don't know whether that's like which I find fast. I mean, I love your honesty with that, right, So is collaboration an antidote to feeling like a phony?
No, collaboration is a deep understanding that there are so many more people better than what I am. I'm really inquisitive and I love learning, and I love being surrounded by people that I think will lift me up.
Why did you say you always feel like a phony? What does that mean?
I'm not sure where that comes from. It's just when you get thrown into leadership. I can remember at young Care, and young Care was had that potential to change the way the disability set would be seen. Is remember when we were growing up, and you were a lot younger than me, But when we were growing up, we were told the stories that we had about the disability community were always pulling on heartstrings. Let's feel sorry for them,
Let's look at these terrible images that are disempowering. And then we said, let's talk about the wonderful power that they have, the independence, the choice of the dignity that
they deserve. And so young Care is about getting them out of age care and nursing homes, horrendous environments where the majority of them are looking into suicide as quickly as they possibly could, because at eighteen years of age, they lost all their funding as young people, and they went in as adults and there was nowhere else to put them but into age care and nursing homes. We
flipped it and said, no, this is about independence. They deserve choice, they deserved dignity, and those things were such a profound learning for me at that time. And hearing their stories once again, these incredible stories of victory that individuals and the hardships that the families were doing just
once again changed the way I always went. But going back to the phony thing, Yeah, here I am part of something that I knew had this incredible ability to change the way the disability sector was viewed in Australia. I was blown away and scared by the responsibility of I said, there's so many better people than me that can do this, and there would have been, and of course there were. But once you get in a position, you step up to the plane and you do the best you can.
I was going to say, because I mean you say that, I could argue you and go now, I think you're probably the perfect man for the job.
But how do you get over that and keep going?
Like?
What do you tell yourself?
Once again, I have to get energy from the work that I do, so I would do on purpose, go and meet the people that I was doing a relationship or supporting, hearing their stories, talking to the mums, talking to the dads, talking to those individuals themselves that just wanted to be have a normal life. And so there's a young man when he first came into a young care home, didn't think that we could look after him. That they thought institutionalized care was the only thing is.
That's all they know was there for their son. And we taught them into giving us a trial. They came into the house the first time to look where he was going to. It's this beautiful house on Wednesday and will win one of the best houses in the street. And they didn't believe that that was going to be where their son was living. The care is and that support workers are really important at that moment and saying, Okay, we're going to take me to his room now, but
you stay out here. He's ours now, we'll look after him and we'll come out and have a cup of tea. And they say, about fifteen minutes into him being associchallengers and they heard him screaming and they raced him. We told you couldn't look after looking after he was in the shower and they had never heard him laugh.
Oh wow.
And he was in the shower because where he had been. He'd been just sponged down on a trestle and that was his first shower since his a quiet brain injury. I'll get emotional again. He was crying and laughing because that simple act for shower, which we take for granted every day, meant so much to him, and I thought, Wow, why do we always take those things for granted? Brother? Looking for those beautiful moments in life that you know that happened when I was in Africa and just seeing
the real struggles of the world's most poor. He sit back and go, you wonker, You're entitled when you complain about something in a restauructure or whatever.
Oh wow.
You know I asked this question a lot to people, but I'm kind of hesitating with you because I don't think it's remotely true. You know, we talked about ego, being like, you've got to have some ego right to get you places, but you don't seem to have a huge ego in that way. And I'm feeling like it's because of these experiences that you've had, right to my.
Son, that's I've got a huge ego.
But yeah, but you know what I mean, there's that difference between good ego, and then there's somewhere in all finness and the role that you play now particularly, I'm sure there are many peop knocking on your door, wanting to take you out for lunch, schmoozing you. It could all go to your head. How do you keep yourself grounded?
Okay, I'll share with you, and I haven't shared this for a while. The one moment that that has ground me, and it's not the terries. That was a profound one of the biggest learning in my life. But when I was working in the Kabira slum. The Kabira slum's the world's largest slum. It's just outside in Arabi, and we set up a school there, a disability school, and it was supporting it called Mary Rice. It was amazing. And if you are poor, you're in Cabira, you're the poorest
in the world. And if you've got a disability, you're the poorest of the poor. Anyway, one morning we got a phone call that one of the fathers had thrown one of the kids at our school in front of a train. It was a kid that just had cerebral palsy. So what I understood that completely, the horror of that moment,
being thrown in front of the train. It ended up coming down to the mummers of Kabira saving that kid's life because she was stuck under the train and she lost three limbs and was bleeding out, and the men were saying, let the child die, let the child die. And I wasn't there. I've just been told this story. And I come in later and the mum has went out, and they said, no, this child deserves to live. It's
not ours to let her lead out. So they all pushed against the train and lift a bit was able to lift the train off to the side so that they could get access to the girl. And I flew in about a month later, and we said we're going to look after her and pay for all her medical expenses. Anyway, I'm sitting there with the mum, and in these hospitals it's like being in hell. You got to do your own washing, you got to bring in your own food.
We're sitting there and the young girl was she was speaking broken English and she was saying things to us. It was with the group of us, and she was saying things, have you seen my leg? If you can find my leg, just bring it here. That was a really tough thing for us to hear. Tougher for her,
of course. And years later I left that job. I got a phone call and we were told that she had dust the school, and that profound moment of imagine if they let it bleed out, This kid, you know, through that extraordinary, horrendous moment of line, has still been able to bounce back, and through love and community, they'd been able to go around. And she's she's had this
and I have no idea where she is now. I just know that I was sitting in my office, I was actually at Young Care and sitting in office and going, Wow, that's what it's.
All about, Brave.
What I talk about a lot of enjoy the ease for empathy and something that I don't think many people understand particularly well sometimes when it comes to I.
Love that name. By the way, thank you, it's really awesome to me.
That's all where we want to live and right with people understand what it means to be bold, resilient, authentic, vulnerable and empathetic.
That's the ultimate leader when I think.
Of it, empathy in the especially in the space that you plan in sympathy and empathy could probably get mixed up a bit, like, what's the difference for you with those two?
I think sympathy is where I don't think that really gives anything. Sympathy for me is I'm looking at something and I'm feeling so worry for them. Empathy is sitting with them, and I think that's the difference. I used to really get annoyed with people saying I feel so sorry for them. Say well, that's not going to do them any good. What can you do? And that's in anything in life. How do you actually utilize what you've got to be able to affect change in any way?
And everyone has that ability to effect.
Change, Like I picked this up on you in Futures I've met you as well. It's the way you speak to people and the questions you ask them. But your ability to hold space for people is amazing. I think if you can hold space and be comfortable with the fact that it could be an uncomfortable conversation, that's what we avoid is a human race.
We don't like being uncomfortable. I just don't like it, So humans do well.
My job is that I've got to do whatever I can to build the brand of Brisbane and to grow the business opportunities to attract investment, tract aviation, bid for the city for major events like an RL Magic Round or the British Irish Lines, and you know, those big wins are great, absolutely fantastic in the work we're doing. So if I'm not out there on failing in my job, if you talk about ego, I don't think this is ego. But I hate losing. I've never liked losing, and I
lose all the time, but it drives me. I don't win much, but I know that when I lose, it makes me more passionate.
That's why you're an epic fundraiser potentially. Absolutely, Let's talk about the v then, because if you're not loving always being on stage or speaking gigs, it's not always we get your energy from. I mean, obviously you're good at it and you do it for a good purpose and a good reason. So I totally get and agree with that. Was there a moment where you felt really vulnerable, like really exposed, like you weren't coping.
I feel vulnerable. Now your listeners won't see this, but I've been crying the whole time. Nice It's I didn't come here thinking I was going to be crying. I'm sort of comfortable in being vulnerable in some of the work that I've done. I know that sounds a bit peculiar, but when you put yourself out there, it's not just about you and what you learn in those moments, but
it's also I think you grow during that time. My father always said, by the time you leave this world, make sure you've made a difference, and I think in those vulnerable times that's where you grow.
I could agree more, but I think that that vulnerability for a lot of people in very senior roles is a real tough one, right, because there's this constant fear of being exposed or being judged.
Why do you not have that? Yeah, why what's the difference?
I'm not scared of being wrong or scared of sounding stupid, because I get annoyed with people when they try and pretend there's something that they're not and I feel like just saying if you don't know, I don't know what's wrong with that? What's wrong with saying that you don't know something? But what I want to do is I learn and I'll come back and I will give you the answer. That's a better answer than trying to make
up something. Being vulnerable is saying I don't have to be perfect, and I'm not perfect just because I've got a CEO behind my title. In fact, that means nothing unless I can do my job well. And one of the most important parts of the job is acknowledging the fact that you're never going to be right all the time.
I describe vulnerability as speaking from the messy middle, right, because the messy middle is you don't know, you know, you don't know something you haven't sold. You're speaking from a space where you haven't figured it all out.
This is why I do this podcast, though, right because.
I need people like you on here saying this because there are too many people in quite powerful positions and affecting the lives and happiness of other people who walk around Unfortunately. You say, I don't know why they do it, because that's the world that we live, and it creates a space that the smartest and you have all the answers, and you're the most beautiful, and all these things stops us from speaking from the messy middle.
Absolutely, And so to hear.
That other successful people who are doing good in the world are okay with that gives people permission, but not enough people have given permission to be vulnerable at the top. I agree, what's something you're aware of about yourself now that you just weren't at the beginning of your career? Like, what do you know now that you're like damn? Like, if I could go back and tell young Anthony, hey, I feel.
As if I am a very good storyteller. You are, And I think the power of story is not talked about enough. I challenge you every time you've gone to a lunch where they're talking, when anyone goes from talking about something quantitatively or just about a subject and then they bring a story into it. Hollywood calls it the lean forward moment. I've got a great mane of mine who just lives around the corner from or works around
the corner from here, Aaron Michael. He's actually Margot Robbie's manager and another story, Margo was our ambassador.
At young here and oh wow.
Anyway, so Aaron talks that those people that are amazing in the world globally are those that they create those lean forward moments, and you watch it. Next time you'll see people at a lunch a good storyteller. They lean Ford it's a physical responsible you want to dive into it, and I think I'm pretty good at that. I'm bad at a lot of things, but I think once you tell story and then bring it back to the yes, people will then.
Listen exactly right, because it's the real life experience. Then you attach the thing you try and teach people to, which is pretty much what I love. If I was doing what I love to do, we'd be talking for three and a half hours because I'll be telling you stories, You're telling me stories. We're going round be amazing wine.
Oh one hundred percent.
I honestly could talk to you for a really long time. I want to bottle what you are in lots of ways and give it out to some of these leaders that I meet. So I've got to wrap it up, though, So I'll finish on one question. What's an opportunity you said no two in the past that you say yes to today.
I haven't said no to too many things. In fact, i'd find it hard if I look at from a sort of surface level. I was offered a scholarship to the American Universities after the world jenis getting that silver metal you get back from those and all the talent scouts are there, and I had an offer to go to Harvard, Ohio State, Kentucky and Notre Dame, and I probably should have taken up one of those because I think it
would have opened up a different world from me. But I don't regret it because then it opened up another different world. What I regret is spending more time with my mom and dad towards the end parts of their life. Like I did as much as I possibly could, But when you start seeing them fail and you know that they're in their last couple of days, you're always full of regrets. Then why don't I walk on the beach with them one more time? Or why don't know if
they're fishing a dad? Or why do I sit down with mum and hold a hand and one more time?
They're the things that truly a thank Charnithan. This has been beautiful. Thanks for coming on