On Racism...

#BlackLivesMatter protesters in Darwin (photo courtesy of ABC News Darwin)

The massive groundswell of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest has resonated around the world. Even to my sleepy little hometown of Darwin right here in Northern Australia. As great as things are here, we do have problems with Aboriginal deaths in custody, as well as a disproportionally large number of Aboriginal people being detained or incarcerated in our country. Things must improve, and I hope that the awareness and motivation generated by this recent movement will mean real changes and improvements to the lot of non-white people here and across the world.

Personally, I consider myself quite lucky. Whilst I am a “sub continental punter” (as Whoopie, a charismatic team member from my cricketing days used to affectionally call me), I have experienced very little overt racism during my time here in Australia.

One reason why I really love this country. Everyone seems very open and curious and non judgemental when you come across them. Sure there may be some rare occasion of undercurrents of racism - being made to wait longer in a line at the bar or store for no reason while other ‘whiter’ customers are given priority, or not getting calls or emails returned if I use my full name when introducing myself (and getting better responses when I don’t include my name) etc., but by and large, these do not really concern me at all.

Probably the worst case was in school in Year 12. I was in a boarding school, and the Year 12 boarders got the privilege of living in actual houses surrounding the school. These were beautiful old Adelaide architectural domains, and the one I shared with about 8 other kids had a disused cellar that we converted into a little hangout to get away from the stresses of exams or school life.

When the cellar was outfitted with all the mod cons necessary for high school kid life, I went to go in there one night after a particular hard study session only to find the door locked. I knocked and asked to enter, only to hear the voice of the guy who was actually the boarding house captain (let’s call him Arthur) say “Sorry, you can’t come it. This area is for whites only”. This was mostly puzzling, rather than offensive to me at the time, and I simply wandered off and went to bed.

Next morning James, another close friend of mine who had been in the room came up to me with tears in his eyes while I ate breakfast. He apologies profusely for what was said to me and said that he was repulsed by it and that it was wrong. I was grateful to James for his honest and emotional short speech (and he went on to be one of my best men at my wedding).

Many years later, at a 30 year reunion of our boarding house, I came across Arthur again at the party. He greeted me warmly and chatted away as if nothing had happened. He probably didn’t even remember the incident at all. In truth, he probably wasn’t even a racist, but just didn’t ‘get’ me for some reason back in the day, and just used the bigotry angle as a way to needle me at the time.

I chose to just forgive him at that point and to focus on talking and reconnecting with the 99 other friends in the room whom I shared great moments with during my school years.

Another salute to strong women in my life

With international women’s day coming up again this weekend, I thought it was time to give another shout out to all the strong women I have had in my life. I did do a post last year on some incredible and inspirational women I know, and my intent was always to add to this over the coming years, and do more (badly amateurish) paintings of them.

I’ve told the story of my current business partner and co-founder, but more than two decades ago, I started another business with L, which was quite successful (We were state finalists in the Telstra business awards, which is one of the most prestigious business awards in Australia).

Now, L is also a keen horse rider, and kept several horses on her property. A couple of years into our partnership, she was out riding alone and came across a fenceline she needed to cross. She dismounted and held the fence wire down and tried to lead her horse over it, but unfortunately the horse tripped and fell on top of her, crushing her pelvis. She was stuck in the wild for hours in intense pain and unable to move until she was found much later and taken to hospital.

Her injuries meant that she had to stay in prone position for months, unable to walk, but still she insisted I bring her work to do while she was recuperating at home. I would often visit while she was staying with her parents in town and she would always brush off questions about how she was and dive into anything she could do to keep the business running and keep the customers happy.

We parted ways in the business a few years later, and while the initial separation from the business was acrimonious and emotional, over the years we have forgiven each other and are back to being friends again. It was after we re-established contact that L informed me that she had been diagnosed with Pompe disease, quite rare condition that causes muscles in your body to break down. Now, L was a super fit young woman, so to hear that she couldn’t walk up stairs etc. these days was unbelievable.

She underwent years of treatment, which included regular trips interstate for blood transfusions and stem cell procedures. I believe she now has the disease managed fairly well, and she currently travels the world advocating for several groups who support people afflicted with Pompe’s as well as lobbying governments to speed up research and approval of medication necessary to treat the disease.

I wish L all the best, and am grateful for the time we worked together.

Goodbye old decade, hello new decade

Hot air balloons rising over the Melbourne skyline on 1st January 2020, taken from our apartment in Southbank. A fitting reflection of how my life is starting to take off right now.

Something feels different about 2020. Every year, I look forward to starting afresh and reaching some of my stretch goals, but it always felt like I was barely keeping afloat amongst the turmoil of life.

The past decade has probably been the least thrilling 10 year block of my life. I lost my Dad, and my wife lost her Mum in 2009, and I guess that sort of took the wind out of our sails, and the grieving process and recovery from that really took a lot of energy out of us, and left me personally directionless and demotivated for many years.

But in 2019, I felt a change in the air. I felt more alive, and filled with purpose that I had in a long while. A lot of things also fell into place to help that impression. My startup began to grow well, I finished an excellent accelerator program with Catalysr, and I had a new, brilliant co-founder join my business as well.

On the personal side of my life, I managed to shed a couple of ‘friends’ who proved to be more hard work than they were worth. You know the ones - who are always only contacting you once or twice a year to ask for favours yet never doing anything to help you move your own life forward. As much as I don’t actually miss them, I wish them all good luck. The mental freedom that has come from not having to care for them any more has given me more brain space to focus on the important things.

We just had the biggest quarter ever for my startup, in terms of customer growth and revenue. I also managed to take a couple of weeks off over Christmas (and so did my co-founder), and things worked well while we were away because we now have a fantastic team who can keep the lights on without us having to be here all the time.

It was a pleasant surprise to come back from holiday to see new sign ups by large companies. We were even contacted out of the blue by a large vendor that we had been wooing for over a year. They decided this week that we were a serious player, and offered us a partnership out of the blue, off their own accord. That was really flattering.

Additionally, I was approached a couple of weeks back for the first time by a VC firm out of the blue asking about investing in my startup. (We declined, but after a long time of me asking and not getting great responses from various firms, it was cool to have one of them reach out on their own initiative). We also have an HR consultancy wanting to resell our HR SaaS and indeed they have even redesigned their website to match our branding as they want to act as a close partner to our company.

All this has set up 2020 to be huge, and I am really excited about where we can go from here. Oh, and I also started earning a regular salary from my startup after nearly 3 years of living on savings. That one fact alone has put me in a better head space as I move to double my salary over the next 12 months.

Onwards and upwards for this new decade. I am excited.

Working with peak performers

My co-founder Fiona, standing on the ‘roof of the world’, the summit of Everest.

Yesterday was my usual weekly catch up meeting with my co-founder in my SaaS startup. Fiona has been with the company for about 7 months now, and has been responsible for amazing growth and success in our company in that time.

Before she joined, as part of my due diligence before signing her up as a director of the company, I spoke to her previous business partner, and he mentioned during that conversation something about Fiona and her husband doing an “Everest expedition” some years ago. I assumed it was a hike up to one of the basecamps or similar, like I have heard others do.

But during our meeting yesterday, our talk somehow turned to the tallest mountain in the world, and I was startled to learn that Fiona is actually the 3rd Australian woman to ever have climbed and stood at the summit of Mount Everest!

Work talk was put aside as we spent a long time talking about that incredible achievement. The sheer amount of mental and physical strength required to undertake that sort of climb, over a long period, and to actually make it to the top that so few have done before just had my jaw on the ground for most of the conversation.

I can see now the where some of the dogged qualities that my co-founder has comes from. There is a big difference working with flakey people who will turn tail and run at the slightest discomfort or inconvenience, and those that will persevere through the tough times and have your back no matter how precarious the situation becomes. I think I know which category Fiona belongs to.

I am really proud of my co-founder, and am glad that I have the opportunity to work with strong women like her in my career.