Front of the Pack Leadership with Vicki Tyler

On the latest episode of Baskets of Knowledge, we sat down with Vicki Tyler, a powerhouse in leadership, coaching, and human development , to unpack her incredible journey of resilience, self-discovery, and growth.

Vicki’s story is deeply human. She spoke about her early years, the challenges of navigating identity and belonging, and how those experiences shaped her drive to create spaces where people feel seen and valued. What stood out most was her belief that leadership is not about authority, but about the ability to listen, and become a catalyst to empower and guide others to step into their full potential.

One of the most powerful insights Vicki shared was about the "edge" where growth opportunities lie. She named her company The Grow Zone which represents that uncomfortable space where "what" happens meets "our response"  to it, as that is where growth occurs. While most of us shy away from the edge because it feels risky, Vicki reminds us that it’s exactly where transformation begins.

Beyond her personal journey, Vicki is a strong advocate for women in leadership,  helping women step into their voices, back themselves, and break through barriers in environments where confidence can so often be tested. Her work highlights that when women rise, entire communities benefit. Her current "195 Campaign" asks the same question to a woman in leadership, in every country in the world. With perspectives learned, she will use the findings to benefit young women in leadership around the globe.

In our conversation, she opened up about:

• Why authenticity is the foundation of leadership – when you show up as yourself, you give others permission to do the same.

• The importance of resilience – not as bouncing back, but as adapting and moving forward with new strength.

• Her passion for stepping intentionally into "grow zones" – the very places that challenge us most.

• The ongoing work of balancing ambition with self-compassion.

This episode is packed with wisdom, inspiration, and practical insights for anyone on a journey of growth, whether you’re leading a team, a business, or yourself.

Tune in to the full conversation with Vicki Tyler on Baskets of Knowledge, now live on Spotify and YouTube.

Enjoy

Prajesh and Tane

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey everybody, it's Prajesh here.
In Tana here. Welcome to our podcast Passes of
Knowledge chats with a difference.
In our podcast, we invite guestsfrom around the country and
around the world to talk about how they got to where they at
the moment. It's about a journey, it's about
an experience, it's about their life.

(00:26):
Kiera Kotori, welcome to anotherepisode of Baskets of Knowledge.
Hopefully we've all been well, happy, healthy, and putting
something to your pastor knowledge.
Tony, what did you put into yourpastor knowledge since we last
spoke? Yeah, I think probably 2
learnings that I've had over thelast week.
I think the first one has been to just celebrate the small wins

(00:46):
on Tuesday. I went to the.
I've been obviously trying to get back into the German
Tuesday. It was a pretty mediocre session
and, you know, I was pretty frustrated that the results.
But I think after, you know, after I got home and had dinner,
I kind of reflected on it and I,I guess I realized that, you
know, yes, it wasn't the most productive session, but you
know, probably a month, two months ago, I wasn't motivated

(01:09):
to go to the gym or to be physically active.
You know, So instead of, yeah, having that mindset of arts, it
was a waste of time or, you know, having those negative, I
guess, thoughts, trying to flip that narrative to go actually,
you know, it's, it's a huge one to be, you know, pushing myself
to go back and get into the German to get back into that

(01:30):
physical activity space. And I think the other learning
that I've had over the last weekhas just been that the the power
of your inner voice and just realizing that you have to be
the one to challenge yourself. You know, within the last couple
of months, yes, I've had a lot of change in my life and a lot
of challenges along the way. But that doesn't mean that I

(01:53):
can't challenge myself to, you know, step outside of the
comfort zone and to start getting into or start getting to
where I want to be. So I think just, yeah, having
that internal conversation to go, yes, it's nice to have, you
know, a sense of comfort and that's that's always going to be
there and you can always lean into it.
But also, yeah, having that power to have that internal, I

(02:15):
guess, challenge and drive for yourself, which isn't always as
easy to do. Yeah, but really, and I think
for sharing that, and I love that because the two are
actually interrelated if you think about it, both modelling
to inner voice, the inner voice that you told yourself about the
gym and the inner voice you toldabout, you know, those comfort
zones. So some beautiful lessons.
And I think this is something that all of us do.
We have those inner voices, those inner critics, those a lot

(02:38):
of us have inner critics and inner champions are the ones
that we don't really bring out often because we're like, oh,
no, we shouldn't. But actually that's the one we
need to bring out inner champion.
But inner critic is the one thatgoes, yo, I'm here and, you
know, takes over. So yeah, it's awesome.
And I look forward to seeing what happens over the next, you
know, the next few weeks with that, with that conversation.
And my learning is I have started rereading the Almanac of
Naval Ravikant. If you have not read that book,

(02:59):
I would highly recommend it as one of my all time favorite
books. It's not really a book.
It's just just quotations really.
And there's 11 quote that reallystarted off me.
I was reading this morning. And it goes like this.
It goes if you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.
And I thought about that and I was like, yeah, how many times
do we need validation from a lotof people before we actually

(03:22):
take a step into anything that we do?
Instead of just finding the one or two people that will say,
hey, this is this is the way to do things or, you know, yeah,
this is right or wrong. They'll be always trying to get
that, you know, whether it's doing another course, whether
it's doing another speaking gig,whether it's whatever it is, we
try and ask everyone and end up doing nowhere.
Nothing ended up making the wrong decision.
Because again, if we tie back toyou, Tana, your inner critic and

(03:44):
inner champion is being silencedby everyone else.
So yeah, that's my learning, right?
It's not about me. It's not about Tana.
As always, we scour the country.We scour the world to find some
interesting people. And we think and, you know,
everyone is interesting. And if we could do this all day,
every day, we would watch out. Joe Rogan here we come, but not
for now. And this week we're really

(04:06):
privileged and honoured to have a guest who, who I've been
really privileged to get to knowreally well in in such a short
amount of time. And I'm going to tell you a bit
of a back story. So again, LinkedIn, for those of
you that follow us and LinkedIn is where we are live and I play
and our guest was on LinkedIn and I and I loved what they were
posting on LinkedIn. And I was like, Oh, this is the
person that I really want to want to connect with and meet.

(04:28):
So I dropped the message and I was like, OK, I would love to
catch up with you. And they were like, Yep, cool,
let's make a plan da da, da, da da, and life happens.
And we didn't make the plan. And then one day I went to a a
training and there she was rightthere in front.
She was the person that was signing up.
And I was like, what are the chances?
And that was when I realized this was a person that was

(04:49):
pretty epic because what they said to me really rains true.
They were like, make the most ofthis weekend and go play full
out and that's been something that's resonated ever since
then. The connection has been really
cool and really awesome. And This is why I wanted to
bring them on to this podcast because they've got an amazing
story just to share and tell. So without further ado, welcome

(05:10):
to our podcast, Vicki Tyler Cureand welcome.
And thank you for having me. This is a a real treatment
pleasure. Thank you guys.
No worries Vicki, for people whoknow nothing about you, who is
Vicki today on the 17th of August 2025?
OK so snapshot, I am in Mount Eden in Auckland.

(05:30):
I'm a mum of a 17 and a nine anda 19 year old boys married to an
American. So I am a dual New Zealand U.S.
citizen and with a couple of hybrid sons and we have been
living up in LA for the last wasup there for 20 years where I
met my husband and came back to New Zealand during COVID for one

(05:52):
year because it was a little bitCray Cray up in in the USAI know
it was bad everywhere and the schools were shut down for a
year and a half up there. So we decided to go for a year
and just ask the kids what they thought and they had the ground
running. And so now New Zealand is home.
So I have sort of had to work out what am I going to do here?

(06:15):
And so I've sort of left behind what I was doing in the States
and went back to uni, did a graduate deployment, applied
psychology to add to a couple ofother pillars that I already had
to start my my business. Yeah, beautiful.
Thank you for sharing. This is just a snapshot of who
you were at this point in time. But if we, if we think about
what you just said that you know, 20 years in the United
States and then move back to NewZealand, what is that like for

(06:37):
you as Vicki had to shift to identity from what you developed
in the States and shifting as you said before, to refined
yourself as who you are right now.
What is that like for you? Yeah, it's, it's been like quite
fascinating. I what I will tell you that I
was so pleasantly, I don't know why I say surprised, but that's
the way that comes to mind that I'd always known that Kiwis are

(06:59):
really nice, but coming back it's not just a couple of Kiwis,
like Kiwis are really good people.
So we all had the ground runningand just felt really at home
really quickly. And when it came to when we were
going to be here for a year, I had decided to immerse myself
really heavily into volunteeringand different sporting codes.

(07:20):
For the most part we'd be alwaysbeen involved in safe, life
saving and then my boys were playing a couple of different
sports and so I was just put my sort of volunteer head on and
whether I'm actually paid or I'mvolunteering, I go, I go all
out. It's just the way I am.
So it was like kind of like a job.
And then and, you know, we had, I had been flipping houses
before I came back from the States and a friend's dad said

(07:41):
he would bank roll me and and somebody else to do that here.
But you know, the out if you remember the market five years
ago was crazy. You know, we had 3050 people
turning up to auction at houses.And I'm like, numbers did not
make sense to me. So I thought, I'm just not going
to touch that with a barge pole.So, yeah, it's the thing I miss.
People do ask this like, what doI miss about the States?

(08:02):
I miss my friends. I missed my connections.
Amazon shipping because literally this is kind of crazy.
So you could literally order a toothbrush and it would be there
that afternoon. Whereas when we got back, I
ordered something on Amazon and it arrived 3 weeks later and I'm
like this, this is so cool, right?
Because we just make do with less stuff.

(08:23):
So it was really believe. I think 70% of the US has
propped up on retail, you know, the economy.
It was nice to leave all the stuff behind it because we're so
far away from everything. We just do with less of it,
which means we're a lot more creative, a lot more ingenuity
and we just stop and smell the roses.
And it's more about the people. So it was.
It's been really lovely in that way.

(08:43):
Yeah, and and what I love there is to make you speak about, you
know, every way, you know, in America was the people in New
Zealand was the people. And it seems like people is, is
something that really resonate with you.
And you know, as you used the word you playful art, which is
what you said to me when I walked in the room there, just
playful art. It seems to be your motto.
Is that something that you that you resonate with, or is that
something that you've learned over time?

(09:05):
Well, I could get into a couple of little stories about how.
Let's go. Yeah, let's go.
Well, so I did all my schooling in New Zealand and went
backpacking when I was 18 for four months and ended up going
for five years as you do and you're up to the motherland and
then sort of through Asia, etcetera.
Came back to New Zealand, hung up my backpack and started a job

(09:29):
with a little company called flight Center that eight had
eight retail stores here at the time, teeny little old company
and in retail. And I decided to go to to
Queenstown with a friend to do abungee jump.
And that was a moment of time that sort of changed my

(09:49):
trajectory forever because I had.
Yeah. So we went to Queenstown, did
the bungee jump. Amazing.
For every of you guys. I'll take it.
OK. It's Brinlon.
Rush is just insane. I walked away feeling like, God,
I want more of that. That was so cool.
Went to bed that night. I woke up a couple of hours
later screaming. It was pitch black.

(10:14):
I literally couldn't see in front of me, my hands in front
of my face, and I didn't know where I was.
It had turned out that I had literally slept, walked out of
bed, out a second story window and hit the ground hard in a
sitting position that I had crushed my spine.
But the wacky thing about this was that 18 months prior I had

(10:35):
an accident, and the reason thatIA falling accident, the reason
I was doing this bungee dump wasto kill or cure the fear of
heights that I had developed from that accident.
So that whilst I've never slept well before, I had actually
broken my back before I had fallen.
Just before I came back from backpacking, I'd slipped 50 feet
into the bottom of a dry riverbed in central Australia.

(10:57):
It was literally 130 KS West of Alice Springs off the grid and
it had taken a really complicated 4 hour helicopter
extraction. And then a flying doctor was
rescued down to the Royal Adelaide and to a spinal unit.
And I had fractured multiple bones all over my body.
My, my skull was broken, my inner ear was broken a couple

(11:21):
places. Half my face was paralyzed.
I had no hearing. My neck was broken in two
places. And to give you an idea, it's
your 7 vertebrae and your, the top of your spine.
That's where most of the breaks happened that cause
quadriplegia. And I had two of those broken
and I'd broken my pelvis in three places and an ankle.
So I, this was a really, really crazy, the fact that I had

(11:44):
broken my spine now again for the second time in 18 months.
So there was so many learnings. So I don't know what you want me
to unpack with that, but this connection with people, can I
speak to that because. Totally, totally.
Yes, Yeah, yeah. This is my biggest learning.
So when I was in the hospital inAustralia, I was lying so so

(12:07):
there were 12 beds and at one point they moved to me to a room
on the end because I was the only person that was not a
quadriplegic and could still usethe bell to ring a nurse when I
needed. So three months pre device, you
spent a lot of time thinking my,you know, my mom getting that
horrible call in the middle of the night, like, you know, from
the doctor serious accident. You know, she's conscious right

(12:30):
now. When can you come?
Like the doctors really disagreed on whether I would
would hear and walk and speak and see properly.
Again, there was a lot of conflicting information.
So I just used a lot of skills, internal skills that I had
learned in my teens, a lot of visualization, a lot of
meditation, things that I had let go a little bit of to really

(12:51):
try and heal myself as best I could.
When I realized because I hadn'tsaid with my spine, I would be
walking out of there and I wanted to happen fast.
So anyway, the other patients, I, I learned a lot through them.
And what happened was I, you know, the parents would go out
and talk at the back and then mom would come and feed me
stories about how everybody was doing.

(13:11):
And there was a kid in there whowas only a couple years younger
than me, name was Brent. He had an accident couple of
days after me. He'd come in in the middle of
the night, doctors and everything Bells and he had come
to and he's like, what's going on?
What's going on? They said, you've been in an
accident. He had been in a boy race
accident. His buddy had slammed the car
into a wall so hard that he and he was a spit severed his spine

(13:34):
as a quadriplegic. And when they told him he'd been
in an accident and that's why hecouldn't feel his legs, he's
like, Oh my God, Oh my God, that's gone.
That's it. I'm going.
And he flat lined and they brought him back.
And then I heard him say to his mom, ask his mother, Mom, can
you lick my face? So what that was all about was

(13:55):
it was the only place he had me feeling.
And he was a kid that was kind of like a he'd been really
depressed longer easy hair, likekind of heavy metal.
He was so disconnected from his life before the accident that he
just needed he needed to connectwith another human being.
So the very raw and real storiesthat I was witnessing and
hearing about in those three months were they had helped me

(14:17):
to access the, the deepest level, deep levels of empathy I
did not actually know I was capable of.
And it was, you know, having to rely on nurses.
I couldn't do anything for myself, you know, I grew an
appreciation for nurses that I, I, I never had anything to do
with the hospital for So what that what happened with and then
I just asked them lots and lots and lots of questions about how

(14:39):
everybody was doing. And when you what I worked out,
and this is what the science nowsupports, I've come to learn, is
that when you access deep levelsof curiosity, it cannot occupy
your brain at the same time as fear.
This is such an important piece of information for all of us
when we go into jobs, job interviews, networking events,

(15:02):
had conversations with bosses, girlfriends, boyfriends.
Because if you stay in a space of curiosity, there's No Fear.
And so therefore courage shows up.
And when you ask one question, kind of like what Tanya was
saying about going to the gym, it was so good.
You went to the gym because thenyou're more likely to go again
and again and again and again and again, right?
So that's what happens with you Can, you can compound your

(15:22):
curiosity. You compound your ability to ask
questions. And then what happens with
curiosity? When we ask questions of people,
it allows us to connect like Brent wanted to with his mother,
right? Because as human beings, that's
really what we want to do. We want to belong.
And we do that through connection.
So when, you know, curiosity leads to connection, it takes
care of fear. And it's their connections with

(15:42):
each other that I've worked out is what makes the world go
around. So later on when I was doing
some big negotiations and I can tell you a little bit my, my
career journey. But when you can communicate
fearlessly and with integrity and respect, gender doesn't
matter. It doesn't matter whether
you're, you know, speaking to a young person or an old person or
you know, who you, when you can hold those things true, it just

(16:07):
really means that the world's your oyster, I believe.
Yeah, what a what a beautiful story.
And I say beautiful because in amongst all the tragedy that
that happened, there was lights.And I think, you know, as you
said with was it Brent, was it Brendan, that young man, you
know, he just the languaging, I'm gone and hear the body just

(16:29):
listens to that, right. You know, it's the power of your
words is so, so powerful. And I'm curious though, Vicky,
about you mentioned you learnt about meditation and
visualization in your teens. Now, the reason I'm curious
about that is because right now it's obviously a mainstream
movement. But if we go back, you know,
20-30, forty years, it was in the, it, it was, it was, we were
even if we got 10 years, you know, people like it was not a,

(16:51):
it was not a thing. So my curiosity is when you were
your teens, what, what made you go into that world there, which
you know, was not, you wouldn't see it anywhere else.
You just, it'd be. It's very, very specific, I
guess. Yeah, it's a really good
question. I haven't really talked about
this much, but I had this wacky little window when I was a
teenager. I mean, I don't matter.

(17:12):
You know what generation being, you know what sex, teenage,
being a teenager is hard. So between 15 and 17, I had
three pretty big things happen and I ended up with my head like
soup. So to share them with you kind
of really briefly, I had at 14, my best friend became bulimic
and pre divisive. It was very hard to get

(17:32):
information about what that was.But I did know that this was not
good. And she swore me to secrecy.
And then the year later when I was 15, my parents had a very
sudden and very toxic divorce. And that's when divorce rates
were back less than 10%. So it was really, you know,
really funky and and it wasn't handled well.

(17:53):
And my mother was, she's passed away since, but she had probably
undiagnosed bipolar and she was heavy drinking and taking
Valium. So she would lose it on a daily
basis. And for whatever reason, I'm one
of four kids. But I was in her confidant.
And that was a place I didn't want to be.
It had a lot of stuff in my headand trying to make sense of what
was going on with my family. It was literally ripped apart
and, you know, thrown in opposite directions.

(18:15):
And then I got my first boyfriend that summer and he
shared with me a couple of months in that he had been
abused by an elderly neighbor for the last six years who was
paying him $100 a week to let him do things to him, which just
was so tragic. And when I broke up with him, I

(18:35):
just, I couldn't handle that. He went on to commit suicide
later. So my head was soup.
I just didn't know which way wasup.
And I actually went to our family GP and he said, you know,
how you doing? And with the divorce, I didn't
mention the other things. And I said, look, the fair.
It's just, it's really tough. I, I wouldn't take my life.
But I've thought about it like, it's just.

(18:57):
And he said, OK, we need to get you help.
And then unfortunately, what happened is he sent me off to a
counselor who said to me, OK, everything you're telling me.
And this was I I said, as long as we tell, my parents can't
know. My brothers and sisters can't
know because that meant back then that you were kind of bit
cuckoo. And I knew they would sort of
tease me shamelessly. So she said, we have to get your
family involved. And I'm like, we can't do that.

(19:19):
Yeah, she assured me we should. So she said, oh, rang your
parents, We'll talk. Crickets, never called.
To this day, I have no idea. Now at the same time, my school
counselor, who was my social studies teacher, said pulled me
aside and said, I heard your parents divorcing.
I'd like to bring you in for a chat to see how you're doing.

(19:40):
And I was like, he was kind of like my last hope.
And I was like, thank you, that would be great.
And he never mentioned it again.So I would see him three times a
week in social studies and you know, I'm in the class and I
myself worth was so low at that point.
I, I clearly thought it wasn't important enough.
So I'm looking through the New Zealand Herald one day and I see

(20:04):
this paper ad, this ad in the paper for self transformation
course. And it was like, do you want to
be happy or do you want to? I'm like, Oh my God, like, sign
me up. So I went along and it was
basically Transcendental Meditation.
We did mattress bashing back then.
I had actually had no idea how angry I was, particularly at my
mother. For whatever reason, so well,
and so a lot of visualization and those skills really saved

(20:29):
me. I came up for air for the first
time and I'm like, wow, I think I'm going to be OK.
I think I'm going to be able to live a normal life.
And what I started to do was meditate twice a day for 20
minutes. And so Einstein, a lot of those
guys, they use this, right, because you can get by on sort
of four hours sleep a night. And So what I was doing, I just
decided like, you know what, I'mgoing to go traveling, I'm going

(20:50):
to get the heck out of dodge. So I took three jobs and with
meditating twice a day for 20 minutes, I would go deep really
fast. And so it just rejuvenated my
brain. I was able to work all these
jobs and I was still partying, things like that.
And then save some money and offI went.
So when I got into the hospital the first time, and obviously it
happened again 18 months later, use those tools.

(21:11):
So I did a lot of meditating, a lot of creative visualization.
I had also done a self hypnosis course at that point.
So I just imagined like some really good enzymes running
around my bodies and heading to,you know, those areas where the
brakes were and just I visualized them being mended and
knitted really tight. So they really worked because I
defied doctors prognosis twice and with how well I would mend.

(21:35):
And you know, Tony, I know you work in sports that they said
you'll never run, you'll never ski, you'll never.
And I've done all those things, including triathlons and things
like that. So that's where the the internal
work, which now is, is so. So for example, you know, the
cool thing about our brains is that, you know, with
neuroplasticity, right, we've learned more about our brains in
the last 10 years. And when the previous hundreds

(21:56):
put together is that, you know, it's never too late, too late to
teach an old dog new tricks. So but what I know about the
brain is that motivation doesn'talways show up when we need it.
So I talked about, you know, automating yourself discipline
and yourself care. So I decided about 5 months ago,
I would set my alarm for 5:00 inthe morning.
And I do that religiously. And then I click my fingers

(22:17):
because you need, you know, you need the hats, the, the sound
and the movement gets me out of bed.
And I do a, a meditation and a self hypnosis every single
morning just to compound so thatI am present and I'm making the
most of my, you know, 100 years on the planet every single day.
And I can show up with lots of energy.
I work really long days and justreally kind of like the most of

(22:38):
all the opportunities that just keep coming when you start going
down those folks on the road of like meeting interesting people.
That's how we met Prajesh, right?
And then this good stuff just keeps unfolding.
Yeah, Thank you. Thank you for sharing that
there. And I think, I think what's
really beautiful there, if we circle back is, you know, those,
those 3 crucial moments in your life allow you to see that

(22:59):
advert in the newspaper. And I'm, you know, if you
didn't, if that didn't happen inother world with a whole
different story, you know, if wethink what the multiverse is,
there's another version that Vicky that's out there would not
have read that and done that. A whole different story.
But what I what I really love about this, Vicky, is that it's
not just something you did when you're 16 or 17.
It's something you're still doing right now because you see
the power of it. And the reason I say this is

(23:19):
because, you know, I think aboutmyself and be Tania so I can
jump in here is, you know, you learned some pretty cool things
when you were a teenager. And then life gets busy and you
don't do it. You don't just, you just don't
do it at all. You just forget about it.
And then later in your life you go, oh, why did I stop doing it?
You know, why did I stop? Because it was so good for me
when I was. Yeah.
We get we get busy. We use it with quotation marks
because it's not really busy. It's about priorities, right?

(23:41):
We just shift our priorities andwe and we shift a little bit.
Tony, I'd love your thoughts as a as a younger person, how what
that, especially what the changethat you're going through right
now. Yeah, definitely.
I think, yeah, I think you're right in terms of, you know,
some things that you're so good about.
And I think that's where I guessmy passion for working with
young people and helping young people really comes to play.
I think it really, you know, reminds me of things that I

(24:03):
enjoy, things that I want to do.And I think you're right.
I think especially I've probablynoticed stuff over the last
couple of years as I've graduated, there hasn't been not
the same sense of enjoyment. But I think because you then
move into the real world and create in quotation marks you,
you know, you lose that sense of, you know, going out and
trying new things. And, you know, you kind of just

(24:25):
get into that rhythm of, you know, I go to work, I've got my
weekends, I've got, you know, XYZ.
And I think, you know, it's beenrefreshing moving home.
And, you know, my little sister's 14, almost 15.
So, you know, stuff like that that really I guess reminds you
to, you know, go out there, havefun, you know, do different
things that you know, and not put yourself into a box of it's

(24:48):
just XYZ that you have to do andthat's all you have to do.
That's. Awesome.
Yeah, it's those crazy boxes, right with Keith, the boxes that
people try and conform to. Well, what I should add like to
this speaks to Tani's, you know,this autopilot that we find
ourselves on, right? I think all of us do at times in
our lives. And this first accident didn't

(25:10):
really light me up. It was the second one when I did
the sleep had the sleepwalking accident, and I'll tell you why.
So I was on autopilot. I was 23, so it was my first
real job. And I was like, OK, so I was
kind of, you know, partying on Fridays and jogging on Saturdays
and sleeping on Sundays. And then when I had this
accident, sleepwalking and bungee and he ended up in Auburn
Hospital and I was like, I don'tknow if you guys are spiritual,

(25:33):
you know, God, Buddha, you know,coincidence universe.
But I really felt like someone was tapping me hard on the
shoulder. Like, dude, you did not get it
First time. We are going around again and
I'm like, OK, like this is kind of scary because I couldn't work
out what the message was. But I've used AI to give you an
idea how how lucky I am to be alive.

(25:54):
AI says that I am .0 four, 5% lucky to be alive, let alone
walking, not not wheelchair bound.
So when I had that second accident, I again lying in
hospital. And here's what I'll say to you
as well. Like when we've got 10 minutes,

(26:15):
what do we all do with it, right?
Two to three kilometers a day now.
And I will say that, you know, our brains generate over 8000
ideas every day. So Laura averages says that
every now and then one is going to be a good one.
So they only sort of percolate and and you know, the manure
works away in our brains if we stop to think, but we don't

(26:36):
think like we used to. So that was the beauty of being
ripped out of your life and having three months on my my in
hospital bed again. And I was thinking deeply about
this and I got it. And my dad used to, you know,
sitting on my shoulder. You get 100 years on the on the
planet guys, if you were lucky, which is true.
If we're lucky, you got to make the most of every one of them.
And it kind of like that accident lit me up.

(26:59):
And I just thought, you know what, instead of asking kind of
like the why, why me? I was like, why not me?
And you know, questions like, you know, what am I meant to do
with all this information? Like what's what's the what is
the measure became like? As cliche as this might sound,
it was accurate. This is the way I felt like, how

(27:19):
do I make leave the world a better place for me having been
in it? What am I capable of?
Like I did the why me flip and now I'm like, why not me?
That's what I tell people to encourage you to ask why not
100? Percent.
Lose, right so now what I decided my friend's town.
I was talking to her recently she said, do you remember you
were 24 and you, you signed up for Toastmasters and you were

(27:40):
quite shy and we were all prettyshocked.
So I was like, you know what I worked out I've got to get
outside my comfort zone because no growth happens in your zero.
It starts when you actually get to the edge and into it right.
So when I was leading an area, when I was in flight center, I'd
become an area manager. We called our area the edge and
the quote I used to love use wasfor the, for the group was if

(28:02):
you're standing on the edge, you're taking up too much room,
move aside, let somebody else goright?
Like, like, what are you waitingfor?
So I started taking the harder forks in the road.
The company was, you know, quitesmall, but they started offering
goal setting and leadership courses.
And I was like, yes, please, yes, please.

(28:22):
I started setting, you know, sales goals and smashing nose,
opened a new store, beat all thesales, go the, the profit goals
from startups and then became one of the most profitable shops
in the world. Like just, it was all about the
way I was connecting with my team, meeting them where they
all needed to be mated. So, so that we, I was kind of
like on a freeway. I was just going, I'm just

(28:43):
building on ramps like calm, let's go, let's go as a team.
This was one of the other thingsI would say that I've noticed
coming back from, from the US. the US is like a badge.
It is very hard to move the needle in the nose of a badge.
But, you know, we are like a windsurfer here in New Zealand.
We really are very snappy and whippy.
But we forget that sometimes. Like Tony, you say, you know,
you hit your first job and you're like, oh, God, and now I

(29:04):
feel like I'm here. Is this all there is or, you
know, like, it's very easy for us in New Zealand and anywhere
in the world. But just the perspective that
I'm really fortunate to have theDavid and Goliath perspective,
being a dual citizen of the US and New Zealand, It's really
interesting. I think in New Zealand, we've
got to remember that like, we'rean amazing country.
Like we were reminded at this event we went to Revved.

(29:24):
Yeah, we're going to Mote. We are.
We have a lot of ingenuity. We're really good people.
We've got a really, we've got really hard work, good work,
work ethic. We've got a lot to be really
proud of. And so each of us has the
capacity to leave the world a better place.
And Kiwis, I mean, man, as far as leading the world with
integrity and all that kind of thing, we've got a lot going for

(29:48):
us. So what happened after the
accident? And I, and then I started
engaging with a lot of these, these, you know, leadership and
goal setting courses. And then I started applying for
leadership jobs and getting them.
And then I got started getting shoulder tapped and I ended up
going up to Canada, Toronto withthe company for an expansion.
And then I came back to New Zealand and had only been back a

(30:09):
year and the leader of the, the,the GM for New Zealand was going
to be retiring. And I thought, I'm going to try
and position myself for that role.
And then I got, he called me at the office one day and said,
hey, look, you know, things are not going well with the startup
in the US. It'd been about 12 months.
And I said I'd heard that. And he said, how would you feel
about going up there and replacing the original president
of the company in a turn around capacity?

(30:32):
And you know, I was shocked because that was not what I
thought he was going to ask me that day.
And I had this impostor syndromegoing like, you know, I could
see it was like a train. It was starting to come.
And I was like, you know what? I'd had enough practice at that
point that I was like, you know,I'm not going to let that.

(30:52):
I'm not going to let that in thedoor.
And so I just asked a lot of questions, and I said, when do
you need an answer? He said tomorrow and I said,
we're already leaving. He's like next week.
I'm like, OK, all right. So I knew I would say yes
because I mean, how do you not say yes to an opportunity like
that if someone cannot believe in you and like, OK, they
figure. And so I went away and then I
literally came back and said, Yep, great.

(31:13):
And so sold, you know, car and rented a house and boom on a
plane and off we went. So what happened?
This is where deep curiosity really helped me again.
So I went up there without much of A road map.
The company was is pretty relaxed and that way there
wasn't a lot of guidance, believe it or not.
So I came in under the cover dark.
And then the gentleman that we were replacing that was that was

(31:35):
pretty rough. The CEO had to just like you
literally got ripped out. And then here's Vicky and he ran
to meet the stores. Pretty rough day for everybody.
And I'm the bad, bad boy on campus, right?
So I remember we had they had a farewell get together.
He did not come. Everybody else was there,
including a lot of people he hadbrought from Australia with him.

(31:58):
And I just bought this the biggest card I could find.
And I said, look, and I just goteverybody to sign and I'm like,
look, I'm really, really sorry about this.
And but let's try and, you know,help him understand what what
he's meant to you and. Yeah.
The best I could. Then what I did is I got busy,
so I went around and I met everystaff member there was about 45
and I took each of them out for coffee.

(32:19):
I got to, I got to work out what's going on here.
And when I got, when I'd done that, I went around again and I
met every 40, all 45 of them forcoffees.
Again. By that point I worked out OK.
I think I know where the problems are.
And so I went around and with various people and instead of
using my curious lands, I was seeking perspective.
So I think what curiosity leads to is then you become a

(32:40):
perspective seeker because when you ask questions and you get
somebody else's perspective, youhave a new lens and you can't
Unsee it. So all of us that are problem
solvers, have we got this issue in our life?
If I get this is where it is good to get other people's
opinions, right? It's like, well, here's the
problem, not necessarily about what I'm doing in my life, but
if I ask TANI, if I ask you to, I'm seeing this Tani, how do you

(33:00):
see it? And Pradesh, how do you see it?
And then I see it. And then we become better
problem solvers, right? Because we're like, oh, OK,
this, you know, so that's what Idid.
And then pretty much I had a road map.
And then the company went in thenext two years took sales from
$3,000,000 to $27 million. So it was really successful.
Turning off taps, cutting the fat, getting rid of,
unfortunately freeing up the future is the term I like to use

(33:22):
of people that were not the right people to be there.
And we had a very successful turn around.
And then September 11 hit. That was tough because three
days there were no planes in thesky, which is, you know, as, you
know, in America, it's just, youknow, in LAX men, there's
multiple planes coming every minute.
Like it's they take on surreal. Very, very, very surreal.

(33:43):
I've never, you know, you wouldn't when you look at the US
right now and how polarized it is on that particular day there,
you know, that particular moment, there were American
flags everywhere. I was caught up in just the
pride, the immense pride, the way people really helped each
other out in the heart and empathy people had.
It was it was very, very moving.And so, yeah.
And then so that's that's kind of like my journey up to how I

(34:07):
ended up in the US and then I met my now husband.
And so does that sort of, hey. What, what I love about that is
there's so many touch points there, but a lot of emotion as
well. And again, you know what you
said, you said before that you play for a lot.
And everything you've said so far is you've been playing for a

(34:27):
lot, you know, just taking on the opportunities, just saying
yes. And what I, what I, what I love
is I, I always get into trouble in my, in, in my workplace
because people always ask me whydid I do some stuff?
And I was like, why not? My answer is always why not?
And they're like, we asked you why I was like, yeah, but why
not? My answer is why not?
So I have, I have, I have two questions.

(34:48):
I always ask one of these, why not?
And the other one is, what's thepurpose?
Those are the two questions I always ask in every single
meeting that I have with anyone.And people get it frustrated
because like, why are we doing this if we don't need to do it?
What's the, what's the purpose? And also why not?
And you know why we're not doingit.
And if you have a, if you have agood answer, that's great.
But if you have a good answer, then there's no answer.

(35:10):
It's not an answer right? I love that projection.
So I do something called the theory of opposites, which is
very similar. Like, so if you're going up to,
say, the US and you're going to open a business and you look at
like research, how do New Zealand businesses succeed going
in the US? It's like, well, I tend to look
at why don't they work? Yeah, that's where the gems are.
All of my really big learnings and certainly when I went on to

(35:31):
to flipping houses is like whereI lost money, that's where the
gold was. So I think that this whole idea,
we all know it, right? Because the athletes will tell
us time and time again we've gotto fail.
The more times, you know, how many shots did I practice?
It didn't get in to to get the three pointers when it really
counts. So, but it's really hard to
fail. So I do a lot of work around

(35:53):
fear and feeling the fear of other people's opinions I think
is really a problem. And it's becoming more of a
problem with our digital culture.
And I call it digital candy thatwe like to eat for taken every
day because that the way people are showing up after they've
been scrolling for two to three kilometers a day, and obviously

(36:14):
not necessarily all in one sitting, is that we put our
devices down, sorry, while we, while we're scrolling.
And if, if we commenters or we like, or some people will put,
you know, comments that are really positive and some people
will put some that are pretty disparaging.
But we are in a position of power and influence when we're
scrolling and we're observing people's work.
Considering only 1 to 2% of people on the planet are

(36:36):
actually posting. It's really interesting in it.
A lot of us are observers, but we have a lot of opinions when
we put our devices down and thenwe rock up to face, you know,
projection Tani, we're in a position largely of judgement.
And so people are asking less questions.
They just assume they know what's going on.
And that's a, that's a problem for us as Kiwis, but also people

(36:57):
all around the world. Because asking what If they're
not asking why not? And they're not, you know, why
not me or why me? Like those are the important
things because it's stopping us from connecting with each other.
the US, did you hear this? Like last year, they declared
the surgeon general declared A loneliness epidemic it.

(37:17):
Was about a powerful letter, he wrote.
It was amazing. Yes, OK, you know what I'm
speaking about and and isolationepidemic so we have more
connected with devices. Yet people have never been so
lonely. Think about my football friend
Brent who wanted to smile face. He wanted to be connected to
another human being with all thedigital candy and all the

(37:38):
devices we have. We should be so connected, yet
we're being porn apart. This is why is going to mean
that leaders and sports is goingto be so important because we
will be a lot of meetings and things will be digitized and and
robotic and things like that, right?
That's just the reality and callit decades from now, but as

(38:00):
humans, our need to help people feel seen and connected and and
valued will be ever so important.
And here's the interesting thingI do AI teach a grace method of
the five things that each of those letters stands for, women
do 4 1/2 of them very, very well.
Men do 1 1/2. And so I think that what comes

(38:22):
naturally for women, which is these the soft skills.
I just got to be called skills. So I think there's going to be
something that, you know, as this evolution was sort of going
through around right as well about women's empowerment and
things like that is that, you know, I think it's becoming
clear we don't know a lot about each other's brains and how we

(38:43):
operate so and see things so differently.
So one of the reason that I doubled down on women was on the
night of the that Trump got in the second time.
And it's mainly because of his rhetoric, right?
But the world is led by 90% men at the top and 10% female. 12%
of research in AI is done by women.

(39:06):
So it gives you an idea when women are 50% of the planet.
The maths is not great. Basically end up with another
disproportionate representation and and products.
Even so, you know, it's interesting.
I, my, my company and I, I, it'scalled the grow zone, the grow
zone layer because it representsthat place in our brains where

(39:30):
life is 10% what happens to us and it butts up against 90% how
we respond to it because that's the that slice is where all the
magic happens. All the work happens, all the
work tiny that you're doing and Prajesh that you guys do with
people, right? That's where the growth happens
because we can't do anything about the temps that, but we
ruminate a lot about that a lot of time there.

(39:50):
So I help with this whole rumination piece and what does
our brains say we can do about that?
And for women, my goal is to getthem ready to get them to the
front of the pack for the next leadership opportunity so that
we start to sort of balance the scales of it.
Because the world right now could use with a little more
balanced leadership style in in the mix and not what not all

(40:13):
women, not all men, but just balanced just so we have better
representation and therefore that perspective that women can
bring. We get better results, we get
better products. Yeah, yeah, that makes total
sense. You know, perspective matters
because as you said before, we we all see the same thing, but
we see it differently. You know, I'm just smiling

(40:35):
because as I when I jumped on, Isaid, ha, you're there's green
everywhere. But if someone's colour blind,
they will not see the green. But I'm assuming my assumption
is that because we all have these assumptions, right, you
know, am I seeing what what everyone else is seeing?
So, you know, the whole perspective perspective thing is
really, you know, something thatI really love as well.
But one thing that really shiftsshifted my thinking as well.
When it came to fear and imposter and was and all that

(40:57):
was some way I read or maybe heard was that everyone has an
opinion, whether you like it or not.
And then when we think that's right, it doesn't actually
matter. Everyone have an opinion.
Maybe it's good or bad. You know, if the minute I jumped
on here, you'd have an opinion, that's what it is when you're
walking on the street, a strangething of an opinion when you're
running, it doesn't actually matter.

(41:18):
And the minute I learnt about that, I said, actually, this is
very true. It just didn't impart me totally
because so often we try to control other people's opinions
when we actually cannot do that there, you know.
So, you know, it's very powerfulthat you said that there, that,
you know, it's that that opinionpiece of the judgement, the
deposit syndrome that we have because we tell ourselves a
story. The inner, the inner critic
keeps coming up. Yes, well, it's also right.

(41:38):
Like we all have 100 billion neurons in our brains.
And so when no one has our livedexperience, that's why it's, you
know, everyone has a story if you take the time to listen
because, you know, we all went to different primary schools
potentially in different countries.
Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, so we grew up with different
parents, we grew up with different numbers of siblings,
we grew up with different teachers From when you're around

(42:01):
four or five years old, that's when you typically have your
first experience of realizing that other people are aware of
you. And for a lot of us, it happens
in our first day of school when we have them.
For me, some I can, sorry if youwant, and I've been asking
recent people recently, you might like to do this.
Do you remember your first day of school?

(42:21):
Do you guys remember your first day of school?
No. No, I guess the only thing I
really remember is my best mate,but we were buddied up and I
came in, yeah, halfway through the year because I'm a May baby.
So yeah, that's probably all I remember.

(42:42):
But not too. Yeah, not specific.
He was buddied up with you. You remember his name?
Keenan yeah, we're still, we're still good friends, yeah.
Right. Did he like put his hand up and
say oh be Tanay's buddy? I don't know if it was a put his
hand up or a volunteer thing but.
See, that's cool. He had an impact on you guys.

(43:02):
So cool. Yeah.
I, I can't, I can't remember my,I can't remember my first day at
primary school, but I remember my first day at a new secondary
school and it's, it's etched into my memory, etched because
it was a brand new, it was a brand new school.
And so I'll go back a little bit.
So I grew up in Zimbabwe and went to primary school in
Zimbabwe. Don't remember that.
I remember a bit of it. So we went to then high school.

(43:26):
No, sorry, primary school. We had a government school and
my very good friend one day didn't come to school.
And I was like, oh, where did hego?
So my mom called his mom was like, oh, where's, where's,
where's nay nation? She was like, oh, we, we put him
into a new school. And then they're like, oh, and
they're like, oh, you should come to this new school.
That's really great. So my mom and my dad had a bit
of a conversation and then we transferred to a new school and

(43:49):
I have to I have to cut off my parents because it was further
away from where we lived. Like the school I was going to
was basically walking distance. And now we have to drive out
there. It was really far away.
I was going to government school.
This is not a private school. Very, very different.
So they had to sacrifice a lot for us to get there.
You know, this school was just being built.
So we were we were the first senior year and they were just

(44:11):
building every year as you go on.
So we're still in construction. And I remember, I remember day
one when I got there and the first thing that somebody, they,
they, they gave me a nickname first day.
Hi, we're going to call you, what's your name projection?
I'm going to call you budgie. And I was like, what?
That was it. That was it.
That was my nickname for Eva. Like, like the bird budgie.

(44:32):
Anyway, so that's stuck for my whole life really until I came
to New Zealand when it all changed.
Then I remember this blatantly on day one, the teacher was
like, do not, and I repeat, do not go where the construction
site is. Didn't do not go there and I met
these friends who were pretty naughty at that time and they're
like, hey, British journey part of us that's going to this

(44:54):
construction zone area. So what did I do?
This is day one. This is day one of the brand new
schools off I went into this construction zone area.
Now for some context as well, when we say construction, it was
all Bush. It was all basically Bush going
to there walking around and there's this we walk into
basically snakes everywhere and we're like anyone was screaming

(45:18):
and shouting go back to class and the teachers find us
managers get destroyed and day one and my parents got a call
going, you know, this is day one.
And what is your son up to? You know, we still we still have
the ability. Not that you come to school and
that has etched into my memory for years and years.
Now. Let me just also parking back to
that bit. This the name of that school was

(45:39):
called Masiya Pambili. Today my coaching company is
called Pambili coaching as a hawk back to where I came from.
So that is definitely an itch inmy memory.
But also they Massieh Pambili means let's go forward and
Pambili coaching stands for moving forward.
So your question, Vicky, is it'sa moment in time that has that

(46:00):
has come through and has stayed with me the whole life.
Yeah, that's really, really cool.
Yeah. It's interesting because I
remember my first day of school as a middle child.
So I was number three of four and I had two brothers, brother
and sister at primary school anda younger went home and be in
the middle. Everything I wore and played
with was was a hand me down. So going to school for the first

(46:24):
time and I was busting excited about this.
I was just really busting in the70s.
You turn up the day you turn 5. So this is a really big
milestone for everybody, right? So I was pumped and it meant I
was going to get my own teacher.I was going to get my own
classroom, going to get my own friends.
And what I what mom bought for me was my own orange lunch box.

(46:44):
This plastic thing that has sucha firm click, you open it up at
a compartment for the sandwich and the, you know, the, the
Mandarin and the snacks. It was like, but the click, it
was like, this is the quality product.
So first day comes, I get to take my lunch box.
I'm stoked, sit down and then the bell goes and it's the first
time to eat. And so I was stoked, grabbed my
orange lunch box, went outside, clicked it open.

(47:06):
I pulled out my sandwich and I'mnibbling away and this boy walks
up to me as he walks by and he points at me and he's just
starts laughing his head off. He's like, she's eating her
sandwich and it's only morning tea time.
And he just starts laughing. And the kids started joining in.
And I was just, you know, 50 years later, this has stayed
with me. I had no concept of like, what
kind of mortal sin, what what, how much gravity there was

(47:28):
attached to this. Was I going to be excluded from
the tribe? But it was really like, it was
really had impact. So I think for me and my 100
billion neurons, this was my very first moment in time where
I realized that somebody else was aware of my situation.
So three days later, Wendy Matthews came into the classroom
and they said, would anybody like to be Wendy Matthews,
buddy? And my hands shot up so fast.

(47:50):
So I looked after Wendy Matthews, and we stayed friends
for a very long time. I was making her make sure she
didn't fall into the same trap that I had.
So yeah, it's really interesting.
Like the how we respond and how we grow, but up to about the age
of 8, and I know you talk about this Prajesh.
You know, all our belief patterns and behavior systems
through those kinds of little experiments determine how we see

(48:12):
the world and whether we're justmiddle of others, right?
Or whether we're kind and caring.
And that is also compounded by what our experiences with our
siblings and our parents. And here's the thing, though,
we're born with fear of heights and fear of loud noises.
Everything else, including fear of other people's opinions that

(48:33):
stops us putting our hands up tospeak up in meetings is learned
behavior. And the good news about that is
that we can unlearn it or we cancreate new neural pathways.
And that's what I help women with particularly.
I find that women are waiting for almost like permission just
to go, like just, yeah, to get your hand up.
And, and that's what I, I, I really work on Catalyst being a

(48:53):
catalyst for people. I don't like people to work with
me forever. I, I, I'm not into that sort of,
I want you to, I want to hit youlike, you know, like I want to
get trouble underneath you. I don't want to and and off you
go and spark you so that you take that harder fork on the
road and you go and live your big life.
Yeah, I love that because you know, a lot, a lot of coaches
that we know want people to be with him forever.
It's like this. What are you doing?

(49:14):
If they're with you forever, you're not doing a job.
You're not doing a job. You are, you know, you need to
let them go and grow and do their thing.
And you know, and I love the fact that you do that with with,
with women and in this beautifulscene, you know, I've been
following you for a while in LinkedIn and I just loved the
way you navigated and shifted, shifted your focus just to be
front and center. Hey, women, this is this is my
gem. And why aren't you as women

(49:35):
putting up your hands to do things?
Because you're pretty epic. And again, I read, I read
something somebody where someonesaid, I don't like, I don't
understand why there's all this,this gender stuff, because he
goes, if there were no women, you wouldn't exist.
And I was like, this is so true.Like if they know and would not
exist, you know, he put, he put this question to somebody who
was anti woman and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(49:56):
And he's like, hey, if there wasno, if your mom did not exist,
you would not be here. So how do you answer that
question? And he could something he was
just because that is, that is a fact.
It is not an opinion, it is a facts.
And yeah. So, you know, I'm a mom of two
boys, right? And so my job is to raise them
to be really good human beings. And so at some point they cross
over the threshold from, you know, being under the in the

(50:18):
nest to living out life, life out there.
And as does every man. And what happens or when does it
happen that some of those men become less supportive of women
or quick to jump on the bandwagon and be a little bit
demeaning or, you know, assume, you know, not promote them over

(50:44):
a guy that's just more one of the one of the Bros or what's
happening when, when does that happen and how does that happen
and why does that happen? What do you guys think about
that? Yeah, I'm going to bring Tony to
this because Tony has been doinglots of work in women's rugby as
a male and he's had lots of challenges in that space, but
also in the growth. Tony.

(51:05):
Yeah, I yeah, it's an interesting concept and
something that I've probably resonated since jumping into
that coaching space. And it's been interesting to
see, I guess, particularly in that sports environment where
the narrative is starting to change, the momentum is starting
to change with more female athletes and that transition

(51:28):
into more professionalism with that.
And so I think, yeah, I think you're right.
I think there's still obviously a lot of challenges that females
have both in terms of, you know,for my example with sport, but
also leadership in that space. But also I think there are there

(51:49):
is growth, there is progress in the spaces as well.
And that's been, I've really resonated with since when I
started in that space to I guessthe last couple of years, you
know, passing comments. The other week I went to the
Taranaki woman's rugby game and,you know, there's a old couple

(52:12):
of mates that were, you know, they're like, oh, that's so good
to come and watch the woman rugby.
You know, it's, it's better thanthe men's game, you know, And if
you think 510 years ago, you probably wouldn't have heard
many of those comments unless itwas somebody who had a daughter
or a daughter's friend or, you know, some somebody that they
knew in the team to actually have those supportive and

(52:33):
constructive conversations. So I think there's definitely
being a huge momentum shift. But I think I think you're right
in terms of, yeah, how do we, I guess open that bigger
conversation as well to continueto progress?
I mean, I think the needle's moving and yeah, pressure
Pajesh. Sorry, I jumped in.
You see, I'd love to hear your perspective.

(52:54):
Yeah, no, this is, it's really hard.
Like this is hard for me to answer my question, Vicky,
because all my life, my my my mom has been my role model.
And I've been very lucky that a lot of my grandma, actually my
grandmother's, my first role model.
Then my mother said to me, womenhave always been really
empowering. It's it's seeing seeing what
women can achieve has never been, if not, or maybe it's just

(53:16):
normal to me, it's just normal. So to answer that question is, I
don't understand how some other people cannot see that.
And I guess that's because of the way I was raised.
And I just said before we all raised in different opinions in
different networks that, you know, there might be households
where this is, this is, this is anecdotal.
This is really anecdotal. There might be households where,
where the father figure puts down the mother figure and you

(53:39):
learn from that and the young person does from that and they
might just OK, cool. We've seen this happening and I
see this actually, I see this happening in lots of, you know,
Southeast Asian cultures, you know, where, where it's a very
male, it's a male society. And you will see that when I was
teaching my, my program yesterday, there was a lady
who's so qualified, you know, she's got a PhD, She's, and she

(54:01):
shared a story that when she wasmarried and had a second child,
she was away nursing a child, breastfeeding the child.
And the mother-in-law came and said, what are you doing here?
You need to go and look after the guests.
That is your job. And she's like, but I'm
breastfeeding my, I'm feeding mychild.
And now in our society, in our world, your job is to go and

(54:23):
give, give the guests and greet the guests.
So, you know, it's interesting because it might be a cultural
thing. It might well, when I say
cultural, I'm going to put them in in quotation marks because
it's we use the word culture as an excuse when it could actually
just be just behaviours that we have accepted as normalized and
it could be individual. So, you know, it's really hard
for me to answer the question because, you know, if you ask

(54:44):
ask someone else a question thathas been raised in the
environment where women have putdown all their lives, they'd
give a different answer. I saw this super interesting
video. It was, I think it was Jessica
Chastain and she was being interviewed actress and she said
there was a a young actress in Hollywood whose father was
involved in the in the business too.
I think it was a producer. And he had been telling his

(55:05):
daughter, you know, just if you ever get, you know, this sort of
the casting couch and all that, which if you ever get hit on, if
you ever like just fight like a wild bobcat, basically.
And she sort of turned to him and said, why are you telling me
to look after myself? Can you just go and talk to the
guys and tell them just to stop?And I was like, God, that's

(55:30):
right. But so I think this is shifting.
It's it's like those that's a perspective, right?
Anyway, I mean, I just think that it's just such an
interesting time on our planet. And I think what I've come to
realize is that we don't understand, even with our
health, we don't understand muchabout men's health and Women's

(55:51):
Health, let alone each other's health.
You know, I was talking to my husband about it.
He's like, I've seen him a couple of it.
He's like, Oh my God, I had no idea, you know, what goes on.
And I think so it's just, it's just being on, it's just been
curious. It's just being on that learning
curve and it's not judging people what they do and don't
know. It's, you know, hopefully we, I
guess it comes down to proximity, the people we choose

(56:11):
to spend time in the company of and, and, and, you know,
elevating our game and just like, you know, being good human
beings and being a good, you know, role model.
When I was up in the States, I felt like I was the most
ambassador for, for Kiwis, right?
I felt, you know, I to a certaindegree, I wanted to represent.
Well, I'm not sure if we all feel like that when we travel,

(56:32):
but I think we can just have, yeah.
I don't know. What do you think?
What do you guys think? You know, I'm the same.
That's all, you know, when I want to travel, when I mean,
it's really funny because I havelots of hats.
I'm from Zimbabwe, I'm in the city, I live in New Zealand.
So I'm like, which one am I representing?
Doesn't actually matter to be a good human and be a good person.
And if they talk about New Zealand, you, you level up New

(56:54):
Zealand, they talk about Zimbabwe, your level of
Zimbabwe. If they talk about, you know,
and you haven't lived there, butyou know, you can put, you know,
you level it up as well as putting it down because it's so
easy to put things down. It's always easy to put things
down. It's hard to develop.
I have an exercise that I do when I do my team coaching and I
get people to do an exercise where they just talk about
positive behaviors. So I have to have to have a list

(57:15):
of negative behaviors and positive behaviors and they're
like, we want a negative behaviors.
No, no, because that's the most easier thing.
Let's focus on positive behaviors and people really
struggle because it's easy to talk about negative behaviors,
but positive once again, becausewe get called out people,
they're shy, they're like, is itOK for me to say that as a
positive behavior or not? And it's really, it's such a
such a crazy cool exercise that they'd be run.

(57:36):
Tony, what was your thoughts? Yeah, I guess, yeah.
I always try and represent New Zealand the best I can.
I haven't had too much travel experience, but the experience I
have had, yeah, try and represent, I guess, myself and
my family, you know, the best I can, yeah.
Well, one of the things that I'mdoing speaking about travel, I

(57:56):
would, if any of your listeners with you guys can help me with
this, is I'm doing something I'mcalling Campaign 195 and it's
around, around women and gettingmore women to the, to the front
of the pack. And because imagine what we
could learn if we could ask one question to a woman in every
country in the world the same question.
And so the question that I'm asking is why do capable women

(58:21):
in leadership still hesitate sometimes to raise their hands
and speak up? Because there was a study from
KPMG that showed that 70% of high performing women and
corporate will still choose to remain silent sometimes.
So the quality of the feedback of the the people I'm getting
that are responding is really incredible.

(58:42):
Like giving perspective from culturally like so I've got one
from a woman in Mexico and she'sgiven me some perspective around
sort of MU Muchismo and, and that and that's so I'm not sure
where how big this will get, butat the moment my goal is 31
December. So if anybody knows a woman in
leadership that could and they could introduce them to me, I

(59:03):
would e-mail them or I can send you an e-mail to send somebody
so that they can respond. So I'm in the middle of
connecting, gathering all this data because, you know, freedom
of speech is really different around the world.
But when it comes to speaking up, it appears to be a universal
problem for women. Yeah.
And what would we get a praise if we had more women speaking up

(59:25):
and sharing their ideas and their solutions and suggestions?
Project 195, can you, I know we've been going over an hour,
but that's OK. I'm going to ask you this
question here. What was the inspiration behind
Project 195? What, what inspired you?
Because you know, it's really powerful and also double barrel

(59:48):
question and also what LED you to come up with a question that
very specific question. Well, so I have a bigger vision
which maybe we could talk about another time, but it's really
perspective, sharing perspectiveat a global level to creating a
network for that. And I just so I'm always.
Because I consider my, my, again, this might sound a little

(01:00:10):
cheesy, but my license plate in the US is citizen of the world.
Because I think that that is howI see myself, how we see all of
us. And I want us to be more
connected. And so that's where I have real
interest in connecting. And I just think the
perspectives we will learn from,you know, Vatican is the tiniest
city and I've found a woman there, but not a lot of them.

(01:00:35):
But imagine that perspective. And obviously somebody in
Afghanistan or Iraq, Iran, so different to life in New
Zealand, right? And so for me, it'll just be
fascinating. I've actually got some
hypothesis which I've written down.
I've got 4 and I want to test them against what I get.
And already I've noticed some interesting trends that are
happening, which I'm really happy to share.

(01:00:55):
I'm eager to share. So whether this becomes social
media snippets or a book or justsharings, but I think my goal is
to help young women in leadership.
That is my ultimate goal with the information that I get from
this. I love it.
I love it. And you know, this is this is,
you know, information. There's lots of impression out
there, information galore, withdrawing information.
And as you said before, digital candy.

(01:01:17):
But I think the key is what we do with information is the
knowledge. And the fact that you you're
asking this question here is information that has been
distilled to knowledge, which can then be used to help young
women or anyone who identifies as as female that had this is
the way or the way forward in leadership is not defined to a
specific gender. It shouldn't be shouldn't be

(01:01:38):
defined. Yeah, Ricky, we've been chatting
for over an hour now, which is great.
And we can keep talking and talking.
And because you have such a fascinating life story, but the
interest of time and also we we can get you back again, we're
going to ask you a final question.
And this is a question we ask every single guest in our
podcast. And our podcast is called is

(01:01:58):
called Baskets of Knowledge. And every episode we invite our
guest to share a piece of knowledge to put into our
baskets. You've shared a lot, but now we
want you to sit into one piece of information to put into our
Kitty. And this can help any aspect of
your life. Yeah, that's really hard.
I think I'm going to go with that quote.
If you're standing on the edge, you're just taking up too much

(01:02:20):
room. Like just go.
What are you waiting for? You've got nothing to lose or
move aside if you're not ready and let somebody else go, right?
So that's the, that's the incentive.
Just go. So if you're standing on the
edge, you're taking up too much room.
Yeah, if you're standing on the edge, you're taking up too much
room. So you've got 2 choices, either
jump or does someone else like that.
Beautiful, beautiful. Love it.
Tana, any last words? I think it's just a massive

(01:02:44):
thank you to Vicky for, Yeah, the knowledge you've shared, the
emotion, the passion you've shared.
Yeah, it's been inspiring to hear just, I guess, a snippet of
your story. Really cool.
Thank you for having me guys, this has been a pleasure.
No worries. Thank you, Vicki.
So I'm you know, I'm just going to summarize this very quickly.
At the start, I said, I said we're very honored to have you

(01:03:06):
on because that connection was really beautiful.
And, and what we said of me was playful out.
And what I've noticed in your whole story and everything from
your, your accidents, ex #1EX number 2 from Flight Centre from
what you're doing right now is you're playing Fallout in every
single thing that you're doing, which is really beautiful.
And the fact that you know, the edge doesn't exist in your world
because you're flying all the time off that edge there and

(01:03:27):
there's some pretty cool things is really, really, really
inspiring not just to myself andto tiny, but hopefully to all of
this is out there. So thank you so much for sharing
the tiny bit of your story there.
You know, it's even less than nought .45%.
It's even less than that there. So one day we'll get to 1% of
your story, which is gonna be beautiful.
Till next time, our listeners, please in, please look after

(01:03:47):
themselves, please smile, and don't forget to put something
into your boss's knowledge. And as Vicky says, if you're on
the edge, step away or jump overfor the next time,
calculatorily. Bye peace.
Thank you for listening to Bossets of Knowledge.

(01:04:09):
Yeah, we hope that you found something useful to put into
your bust of knowledge. And as we said before, remember
to put something little into your busts of knowledge every
week. And as always, feel free to
like, comment and share this podcast.
Thanks, everybody. Bye.