Strengthening Leadership Muscles Daily

Leadership is a dynamic practice, as shown by Rachael Cook, CEO of Inclusee. In a podcast with Tanya O'Shea from IMPACT Community Services, Rachael shared insights on leadership, remote work challenges, and the importance of connection.

Rachael sees leadership as a daily effort requiring constant reflection. She spends the final minutes of each day reviewing her performance and considering improvements. This focus on continuous improvement drives her work at Inclusee, which aims to reduce loneliness among older Australians through digital technology. Tanya also views leadership as a daily practice, similar to building a muscle.

Rachael was recently named Leadership HQ's Leader of the Year, reflecting her long journey and dedication. Inclusee's mission is to use digital connections to combat isolation and loneliness. Rachael makes technology user-friendly for older Australians, ensuring they can connect without feeling overwhelmed.

Rachael supports remote work for its benefits in attracting a diverse workforce and enhancing innovation. She has led efforts to define and integrate organisational values, ensuring every team member understands and upholds them.

Continuous learning is key to Rachael's approach. She schedules learning opportunities into her week, setting an example for her team. Rachael also values authenticity, encouraging a supportive environment where team members share ideas and expertise. This builds trust and drives innovation.

Rachael has fostered a culture of inclusivity at Inclusee, reflecting in the organisation's diverse and neurodiverse workforce. This diversity enhances their ability to connect with the community. She advocates for virtual volunteering to remove barriers and broaden participation.

Rachael advises overcoming fear and taking risks. This mindset has been crucial to her success, helping her lead Inclusee effectively. She also promotes creativity and innovation, encouraging her team to think differently and develop unique solutions.

In summary, Rachael Cook’s leadership approach offers a valuable blueprint for impactful leadership, emphasising technology, support, and innovation.

Thank you for listening to this episode of "Stronger Together" We hope you enjoyed the conversation and gained valuable insights.

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Transcript

**Tanya:** Welcome to Stronger Together, a powerful podcast series hosted by Impact Community Services. I'm Tanya O'Shea, managing director of Impact, and I have the pleasure of Frontline in this little passion project of ours. In the podcast, we dig into some of the many social problems that people are facing within our communities. And we chat with guests willing to tackle the hard conversations.

We want you to be kept informed and updated on the latest information. Yeah, they're also aware that some of the topics address sensitive issues that could be triggering or distressing for some listeners. If you find any of the content challenging, we encourage you to pause the episode and seek immediate support. Information on where to seek help will be provided at the end of each episode and also on Impact's website, Impact.org.au. Please prioritise your well-being while listening.

Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we live, work and meet. We pay our respects to the elders, past, present and future that they hold the memories, traditions, the culture, hopes and values not only of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but of all Australians. Now let's delve into the important conversations awaiting us in today's episode.

One of the things that I really love a good conversation about is leadership. It lights me up. I think I think I think about leadership every day, actually, from the moment that I wake up. And for me, leadership is like. So I go, I have a gym, so I have a home gym. And for me, it's like building that muscle. So like I'm building a muscle in my body every day. I have this practice and I think about the way that I'm turning up as a leader, and I think of it like a practice.

So today I wanted to talk about leadership and I wanted to dig into that a little bit with someone who has recently been awarded the leadership HQ, not only Leader of the Year, but overall outstanding Leader of the Year. And on top of that, her organisation was also named Leadership Organisation of the Year or Organisation of the. So Whammy. Triple Whammy. Triple qualified. Rachael Cook So I'm from the CEO of Inclusive. So I'm super pumped to be talking to Rachael today because I feel like I am in celebrity present, so. Rachael, thanks for joining me this morning.

**Rachael:** Thank you so much. Tanya, I know you're absolutely not in Celebrity Presents Platter. I'm very proud to be here and absolutely represent the organisation.

**Tanya:** So what a night. So it was only it felt like only a couple of weeks ago, but it was back in May. and that award, it was it was a gala night. It was in Sydney. What did that feel like to just get like award after award after award, like. What was that like for you?

**Rachael:** It's surreal and it's still surreal. And it's funny that you said it was back in May. It feels like it was last night. Still. I'm still absolutely coming off a very big high from that moment. But it's surreal. And I say this all the time. Anyone that I talk to about it, it is I need to look at something tangible to actually sink in that really did happen. So whether I have to pick up the actual trophy itself or I have to look at a photo or something, I'd feel like it was a dream. I feel like it doesn't actually happen. and throughout that whole night as it went on and my name got called up for that, particularly the second or the third one, I could hear my diet, but it wasn't able to process it. It was like, I know that's my name, but is that what I do? Hard? It was, yeah. It was just absolutely incredible experience. And what I love about that experience is a moment for reward and recognise recognition for the amazing work that we're doing here at Inclusive, but it's recognition of leadership work for such a long journey. You know, when I got off that moment and took some time to reflect about that, it wasn't just the work that, you know, personally I've been doing in the last 12 months. It's the work that I've been doing in leadership space for over 22 years. And I think that's important to reflect on and reflect on what actually brought you to that moment. So it's surreal. I still can't believe it happened.

**Tanya:** And when you mentioned Dream, then it felt like a dream. And I'm so pleased that you've taken the time to reflect on that because these things don't just happen. It's not something that we think, that sounds like a nice thing that could happen for me. And then, congratulations, Rachael. So. So tell us tell us about inclusive, first of all. But but then, you know, let's dig in to some of that hard work to actually make that dream, that vision for inclusive reality. So. So tell us about inclusive. What's inclusive for those who may not know?

**Rachael:** Well, I might be a little bit biased, but inclusive is one of the best organisations you could ever come across, and that is because of the amazing work that we do and the purpose, the whole mission of why we're here. Our mission is very succinct and it's to use the power of connection to reduce isolation and loneliness for Australians. And we do it very differently in regards to we do it through digital technology. So we connect older Australians, just like you and I are connecting right now over a virtual environment and we connect them with volunteers and team members from all across Australia and they socially connect and we're making a big difference in two spaces, which is reducing the loneliness and socialising component. But we're also helping to support people through the digital divide as well and getting people a little bit more savvy on the digital front. So it's a purpose that I'm very, very passionate about. Something that I want to leave a legacy around is actually bringing social connection to the forefront and ensuring that people not need to know that as a society, social connection needs to be the priority. It has so many benefits on so many different fronts from medical and mental and all sorts of things that I don't think people really understand really understand as a community. It's something that we have lost and that we really need to bring it back to the priority and make it number one because it should be the number one way. We're humans, we are social beings. This is how we operate, this is how we're supposed to operate. and so we need to do more connection so people are not connected enough. And so we've been around as an organisation actually for 51 years now, so which has been a long time. And we actually started in that space 51 years ago. So very different to what we do it today. Of course, it was in a normal face to face type environment. We had a building that was built for us to bring older Australians together that were in the local community and connect for activities and things that they actually enjoyed and had interest in. And it was dancing and cards and craft and things like that. And they still do that today, but through a virtual environment instead. So and my goodness, what happened in between 51 years ago and today, so much has changed in the organisation and the direction that we've gone in. But what I love about it is that we've returned to our core roots of what our actual mission is. And I think that's so important. We are a not for profit charity. And so working in this space, you are all about your purpose. You should always be making sure that your strategy, your, your alignment, everything that you do, everything that you invest in, comes back to that key mission and purpose. So it's an amazing organisation, very proud of what we have achieved and where we are today. And we've gone through so much change to get it through that digital front. But what that has helped us achieve is to have a further reach for people and connect more people all over Australia. So that's very exciting.

**Tanya:** Wow, that is some ambitious on so many fronts and so exciting and there is so much in there. I've just got to take a breath, Rachael, because I'm not sure where to start because I'm thinking about older Australians, I'm thinking about techno logy, the rate of change, the acceleration with technology in change. And for some older Australians there's fear attached to technology. So what you're saying is right, social inclusion. We've found that there we want to connect people, we want to bring them together, we want to use technology, and we're going to break down some of the fear that's attached to that and actually increase people's wellbeing using technology to value add to the work that we do.

**Rachael:** Yes, that's exactly

**Tanya:** what you're doing. And it's just following with that because it's just like, wow, you know, how does that how do you start to break down some of those fears, some of those barriers with older Australians? Is is that a barrier like.

**Rachael:** Yeah, yeah, it is. It's a huge barrier. And so when in our programs are getting people into the program, they actually have to fears that they're trying to overcome. At the same time, one is very much the digital component and we've got a mix of people that are participants that are in our programs from people who have never, ever used digital technology in any format ever before to some people that might be a bit more savvy with it and some people that are quite savvy with it. So we've got a bit of a mix. So there's the fear of the digital connection, but then there's also the fear of the connection itself. So one of the problems with social connection is when people are either isolated or lonely, getting them back into a community environment and connecting with what starts as strangers is extremely scary. People go, you know, I don't know what to do or how to talk to someone

, or What if we don't have anything in common? Or what do we talk about? So they've got to face, they've got to overcome when we come into the program. And what we love about inclusive is our philosophy is to make everything as easy as possible. Everything we do for our virtual community, whether it's staff, whether it's participants, whether it's our volunteer network to connect in, it needs to be as simplistic as possible. So how we actually do that is we try it whilst we do it through technology, we actually want to make the technology invisible for them so that they're trying to not concentrate on the technology and they're concentrating more on the social connection component. So we've developed our own app and it's specifically designed to be as easy as possible. It has bigger large font writing, really easy buttons to press. So we're taking in consideration some of the challenges that older Australians might have physically with technology as well. And we make it so that it's a couple of buttons. So when we actually connect people, we connect them through a pretty much a two step process. Really all they need to know to get into our community is how to turn on their device and how to charge it. Because obviously if we don't have those two things, it's very hard to connect and then everything's pretty much touch button and they connect straight in to connect just like you and I. So once they get into the program, they realise how easy it is. We actually offer them a whole range of services that help them connect more. So we help them with digital technology services so that they learn more skills, whether it's about their physical device or about certain programs that they want to use as well. So things like if they want to upload photos on Facebook and share with their family and friends whether they want to learn how to Google and research, it might be their old street that they lived on or go back down a bit of a memory lane. We can help teach them things and also all the way to online shopping so make their life easier and services are easier as well. We are actually in the aged care sector and one of the challenges that we have in this sector is the lack of services and funding that are around. So there's so many people out there that need those services that can't get access to it. And what I love about digital technology, it opens up doors for them and services that they might not be able to get access to. So it's just fantastic on all fronts.

**Tanya:** Love it, love it, love it, and volunteers so that's a conversation I know for many of us, and I've been associated with a number of different volunteer organisations, and I know that it's getting harder and harder for us to find volunteers. Yeah. How many volunteers do you have and how do you attract them?

**Rachael:** Yeah, great question. And you're right. Volunteers. Look, they're the key part of our network that people keep out of our community. You know, when it comes to social connection, you need more than one person. You've got to get the what the participant that's coming into our community. And then we have the volunteers that connect with us. And we have a range of volunteer roles here at Inclusive. We have the one connections. So just like you and I does, where one volunteer connects with one participant and they usually connect once a week and have a chat about whatever it is that they want to talk about and really build a core friendship together. And then we have volunteers that do group programs as well. So we have a whole heap of group programs and different interests. So we have into travel all into books or into games. We have into theater, into singing, My goodness, you should see karaoke when it's on a virtual network. It's absolutely hurt. But we have volunteers that help us deliver those types of programs as well. And then we also have volunteers that help us help our participants learn the digital technology component as well. So one of the things I love about inclusive is we have a wide range of volunteer roles to offer. We have depends. We have volunteers changing all the time, but we have between 250 to 300 volunteers at all times that are located all over Australia and that's what I love about this program. When were in a local area, we could only have local reach and now being in a digital front, we can actually expand that out and connect to volunteers all over Australia to ensure that we've got the right volunteers for our program. So we actually spend a lot of time with our participants understanding who they are, what their needs are, what type of people they are, what they love, what they enjoy, and connecting them with the right volunteers as well. So it's really challenging. Volunteer network is continuing to decline, but what I love it includes saying I want to continue to voice that. That is thinking about how can we do volunteering differently. And what I love about the digital network is there's opportunities for us to connect with corporate volunteers and they can actually do this program while they're at work. So some of them only take an hour a week and they can actually connect in, do it while they're at work and be part of that volunteering network without it actually implication implicating their time with their family or their other needs. So there are all the commitments and that's really what some of the challenges that we have with volunteers is people no longer have the time to do it. So how do we make it easy for them to connect and actually have that impact and fit it into their day to day for them?

**Tanya:** Yeah, well, on reducing some of that friction 100% and then some organisation. So I know here at Impact we allocate a couple of hours a month and just go, go and do whatever you need to give back to whatever is important to you, whether that's giving blood, whether that's doing some sort of volunteer work. Yeah. So and I'm sure other organisations do that. But imagine you don't have to leave your office. You don't have to get in your car and haggle with traffic and do any of that. You can just jump online and it takes all of that friction out of it. It takes the cost out of it because, yes, be real for some people, for fact, for some volunteers, if they've got a jump in their car, there's costs associated with them going and doing their volunteering. Yeah. So this sort of cuts all of that noise out, doesn't it?

**Rachael:** Absolutely makes it so easy. As I said, it's easy to connect to our community and how do we recruit them? So we actually cover some of that costs. We have to have all of our volunteers must be place checked. That's a requirement. We are 100% government funded, so there is safety networks that are in place to ensure that we are protected, protecting our participants in our program and likewise protecting our volunteers as well. So we do all the place checks for them. We cover all those costs for them and as you said, doing it on a virtual network, it is essentially free. They don't need to travel anywhere or there's no additional costs for them to do anything. So that makes it really, really easy. And we gain our volunteers from a wider range of opportunities. We do traditional type marketing, word of mouth. A lot of people join because I love what you just touched on, Tanya, you about what you do. It impact of sending people to go volunteer with what they love. Volunteers come and volunteer with things that they're passionate about, things that they have some sort of story or some sort of connection to. And so often we have people that approach us because their parents have been isolated or their grandparents have been isolated, or they've heard some sort of story of they've got some sort of family connection and they want to ensure that those people are reconnected back into our community network. So we have a wide range of ways that we continue to connect with them, but the fact that we do volunteer in differently here and inclusive are really encourage everybody to think about how can like, how can they can offer our volunteering opportunities for people that are different because we've got to keep thinking differently, especially with the decline in the volunteer network. Otherwise we're going to lose all these beautiful people that do so much for our organisations and for our communities and for Australia.

**Tanya:** Yeah, what a great call to action. So not only for those volunteering organisations, but also there's a call to action for employers. So if you don't have some sort of opportunity for your employees to go and give back to the community, please create that. And for all of those amazing employees who would like to find a way to volunteer, but they want to sort of make it as simple as possible, here's your opportunity. We will have a link to include see with this podcast. So please jump on there, check out, see what you can connect to or what your interests are. Is it that simple?

**Rachael:** I can just somehow jump on the website and contact us. We have a whole volunteering team that are absolutely amazing and they're here to help and support our volunteers all the way from the moment they commence with, with and closely and all the way until one day that they exit with inclusive and we have support materials for them. We have a team to support them through their whole journey. We make the onboarding process as easy as possible and we do learning and development and reward and recognition for them. We really want to make sure that we show and value our volunteers the entire time that they're within closing as well.

**Tanya:** Wow, it's outstanding. I can absolutely understand why those judges awarded include, say, the organisation of the Year, but also, Rachael, for you, Leader of the Year. So let's talk a little bit about that. So I'm hearing that you've got volunteers all over Australia. I'm therefore making a leap or an assumption that you also have staff all over Australia. So you've got a remote workforce.

**Rachael:** I have a remote workforce, but they're actually coincidentally. So we

 started as an organisation in the local area of Brisbane and coincidentally all of our team are still located in Queensland. So sorry but, but technically yes, we are 100% remote workforce. Our team could work anywhere from Australia. We do have catch ups every quarter where we do a face to face sort of training environment, but technically our team could work anywhere.

**Tanya:** Wow. So since COVID, we've heard a lot about workforces working remotely, flexible workforces. We've heard also some of the challenges around that. And for some organisations, they're now saying, hey, we want you to come back to the office and come more into the office. So for you, tell us about some of the not just the challenges but some of the opportunities with working with the remote workforce. What have you noticed for inclusive, the value that's created for your organisation?

**Rachael:** Yeah, absolutely. Look, I'm a huge advocate of remote working. I must stress law. It's not the right fit for every organisation and it's not the right fit for some roles, and it's not the right fit for some people. But if it's the right fit for the organisation and let's start there is we actually made a strategic decision before just before COVID actually came in that were going to have a 100% remote workforce. And the reason of that being is that was when were transitioning our services to be 100% digital services. So previous to that, all of our services were delivered face to face. And when we made the strategic decision to move in this direction, really align our mission, purpose and values, to realign our services to be digital, the first thing I had to implement was the fact that we needed to walk the talk. So how do we invest and market and grow a digital front if weren't doing it ourselves? So I went, Right, if we're going to do this, we're all doing this. We can't expect our participants and volunteers to do it if we're not leading the way in this space. So that was a strategic decision that we made and then were planning to do it actually of June of 2020. COVID hit a little bit earlier. So we obviously fast tracked that a little bit and it was making the right decisions and going through those challenges of ensuring that our people were ready and set up for that, that change, which is a big change. You know, the people that were transitioning through that period, none of them had ever worked remotely before. So it was making sure that we had all the structure in place, making sure that they had all the tools, the systems, the equipment, you name it. In fact, actually, I remember we had a boss at the time. I drove all the team members around with the desk of their computers and their chairs and all the stuff that they needed to actually set up because many of them didn't even have home offices to have a home set up set up properly. And I can't stress enough that if you are working remotely, you need to have the right systems, equipment and tools to actually make that work. So that was that was one of the transitions into that decision, was making sure that were an organisation that led the way, that we walk the talk. And that's how were going to do it. And ever since, you know, I've I've absolutely advocated for remote work because it fits for our model, it fits for our organisation. And what I suppose some of the amazing things that I've actually opportunities that have come out of it is we've learned so much along the way around what makes a really good remote workforce work. You know, there's things that we've done that we probably didn't get right along that way, but we've absolutely continued to tailor that to make sure that it does. And I think for us, when I'm thinking about the people and making sure that you've got the right people for it, is it something that is considered and talked about right from the moment that any new staff member actually joins the organisation, that we make sure that they're the right fit for my work? Because as I said, it's not the right fit for everybody. Some people really need that face to face interface and some people might need that hybrid type environment. And we sort of have that hybrid type environment where we bring the team in once a quarter. We do a face to face time training day. It's a day that we all spend together and you do get to see everybody in person, but it's not our main model. So but learning through that, one of the biggest things I've actually learned from the thing that I'm probably most proud that we have actually uncovered through that process is that we've actually got a very large NEURODIVERSE staff network. So and I think the remote working is actually one of the benefits in which we've drawn such a beautiful diversity of people to this organisation. And it's because we've got a lot of structure. It's not just the remote work. We offer things like four day working weeks. If they want to do that, they've got full flexibility provision. So people have got kids that they want to leave at 3:00 and go pick up them and bring them home from school. They can do if they need to leave for an appointment, they can do. We've got all of those sorts of structures and provisions in them for them that make that work. And the remote workforce was a big driver of that neurodiverse network. And I think it's because people prefer to working at home if they identify as neurodiverse, have their own space, have the setups and equipment and structures and accommodations that they personally need so that they can work their best. And throughout this process, we've we've understood and grown through a safe space is that we probably have up to maybe as high as 65, 70% of neurodiverse team members, which is incredible. Like I'm absolutely blown away and so supportive of that. And I think more organisations need to think about when they're having that conversation of we need to bring our team members back from being remote workers. I'm like, Is that the right structure for them? What is it that person needs? So I think people are not thinking about that space a lot, and especially when it comes to neurodiversity, it's a space that in the diversity front, I don't think many organisations are spending a lot of time on and we need to know more about because there's so much under that, you know, through my journey of learning about it, you know, there's more than 180 different types of diversity under that one umbrella, and they all have different needs. And what I love is that because we have a remote workforce and we can support our team members with that, we can support each one of those individuals to work the best way that they need to work.

**Tanya:** So again, a lot in that and thank you for unpacking some of that because I think it's given us insight into her This hasn't been easy the dream and what it takes to actually bring the dream to reality. It takes a lot of hard work. It takes the, you know, getting in the car, taking the desk, the chairs, you know, to, you know, employees, to set them up to make sure that they've got the right environment, the learning that goes along. And I think sometimes it's the incidental learning. As you said, I didn't expect it. It wasn't until we started going down this track that we learned more about our people and the individual needs of our people, which is incredibly important, isn't it, to get there? Yeah. Not only living through a strengths based model, you know, and how the how they're showing up, but also as an employer being able to support your employees in the best way possible. So so thank you for sharing that welcome you know provided some beautiful insight into some of the grit about the but also the learning that happened along the way for you as a leader. One of the things that you've mentioned a couple of times, and I don't know whether you even realise that is you talk a lot about vision, mission values, purpose, vision, mission values, purpose. What for you as a leader, do you think is the most important? So if you're thinking about those things, is there anything that you would pride or ties over the other? And if you think back to 2019, Rachael entering the business CEO cap on and going, okay, this is the thing that I'm going to focus on the most right at this point in time, even though I know all of those things are important.

**Rachael:** And the thing that I focused on first and I love that you're actually structured like that because I'm taking myself straight back to that moment when I walked into the doors the first time in the organisation, first day on the job. The thing I started with was values. I'm very much a values based leader, very passionate about that space, and I took the team on a journey to actually really understand what our values as an organisation were. Because back in 2019, it wasn't clear what those values were as an organisation. So I did a lot of team development workshops and getting to understand each of the team members and really talking about what values were and that it's not that, you know, it's just something that you stick on the wall that people look at. That's a sign that looks nice, that I needed them to understand that when we talk about values, it needs to be embedded in everything that we do. It needs to be how we live and breathe. It needs to be how we make decisions. It needs to be how we conduct ourselves every day. And so I took the team through. We actually workshopped and read, redefined and redeveloped what the organisation's values were. And we actually got down to three core ones. And we wanted to keep that very simplistic at that point because the organisation was going through a massive amount of change and they were trust, respect and compassion. And then we unpacked what actually meant for those values. What does it look like? What does

 trust look like to someone? Because what trust looks like to you might look differently to what trust looks like for me. But then I actually took the team to through different workshops to actually understand what are their own personal values, because I think people reflect on that enough. And when you understand what each of those values are, you can understand a little bit about more how they operate, what's important to them, how you might need to communicate to them, how you might need to bring them into something. When you're working on a project, what's going to be important to them. So we worked on the organisation values and then we worked on the team's individual values, really understand each other as well. So that was the first place I started, and I continue to reflect back to values in everything that I do. I probably don't realise I actually mentioned it so much. Sorry, because it is just part of part of who I am and how I operate day to day. Even when we come to performance reviews that include, say, the first set of questioning from both peer interviews and feedback that come through, as well as my own feedback as well as their self reflections, is how did you demonstrate the values of inclusivity? Please give us examples. And so we talk about it all the time. It's not the pretty picture on the wall for us. We live in freedom.

**Tanya:** Yeah, absolutely. And completely, completely agree that values have to be inherent. The vision, I think, you know, that's the thing that you do come up with and obviously that's the bit that you want to. We'll be marching in the same direction. But those values and here an impact, I guess for us, it's about how do we talk about them at staff meetings, you know, and how do we share our stories with each of us? Because I think sometimes we can forget or take for granted the great stuff that people do in demonstrating an organisation's values. And unless we're even calling out the small staff in those little small wins that they have along the way, so easy for that to get lost. Yeah.

**Rachael:** So I'm one of the other things we do here at Inclusive is we actually have values awards. So when we do get together once a quarter, I get the team to nominate a staff member and actually give me an example of, okay, this person's been nominated for the value of trust. What did they do? So share those beautiful stories. my goodness. When they come through awards, I absolutely love rating them all very hard because obviously I have to make the decision of who is getting the award. Very difficult decision. But I love that because it just shows that day to day that they're living and breathing and everything that they do. And even myself, you know, I often take the time to reflect at the end of the week. And I think about particularly really difficult decisions I need to make, really challenging ones that didn't demonstrate the values through those. And, you know, some people might go even when you have to make a difficult decision and the answer is no to something or you're pulling away from something or whatever it might be, people might go, Well, how did you demonstrate respect for that? Because that, you know, you said no to that person online, but I did it in a respectful manner, you know, and this is how I sometimes I can't always say yes. Sometimes I have to make those difficult decisions and take things in different directions. But did I demonstrate it through that decision? And I always reflect on that.

**Tanya:** And I think leadership on the other side of the fence. With that said, the leaders making the decisions, but also the leaders within our teams also respecting that you don't always get what you want. Like that's the reality of leadership. So what am I going to learn from being told no in that situation? In one of my learning from that is that anything I would have done differently if there was some ask or a pitch that I needed to put forward. And I guess there's learnings from both sides, isn't there? So you've just talked about your reflection, but also for our teams being able to reflect on that decision as well to go, look, I don't always get the way, you know, it always doesn't come my way. That's the reality of life, isn't it? It's not always going to come my way.

**Rachael:** Very, very true. And now inclusive, growing. We now have six values, so we've added on another three some values. We got our three core, which are three core, and then we've added on our inclusivity, connection and impact. So wanting to make sure that we're bringing those to the forefront as well. Obviously we're very much here about the impact we make. You know, the services that we provide are literally life changing. We have participants that tell us all the time about if they weren't in our program, they wouldn't be here when they refer to here, they may be physically here at all. So it's just amazing the impact that social connection does make. And then obviously connection, that's a bit of obvious world for us. But inclusivity at inclusive where an extreme, highly inclusive organisation, we're extremely diverse. I absolutely love it. And we have so many different people from different walks, backgrounds, and that's what makes a community absolutely beautiful.

**Tanya:** Yeah, and that's incredible impact for someone to say, I actually wouldn't be here without your organisation. Yeah, that's a let me pause for a moment and take that in because that's pretty powerful. Yeah. So congratulations.

**Rachael:** Thank you. I've never worked in a role. You know, when I came into to this organisation, I've always worked in the private sector, and this is why I'm here. You know, I woke up one day, and one thing I say to my team all the time is my job as a CEO is to get your two feet to the side of the bed and love what you do, love coming to work and make the most out of it. And you love everything about what you do. If you get to one day that you put your two feet on the side of the bed and you don't feel that, I hate to say it, don't come because I want you to have that excitement. I want you to love what you do and it's okay. Sometimes you lose that passion and it's been a motto I've always had for my entire career. And one day it was me that put the trophy on the side of the bed one day and I went, What am I doing? What? Why am I here? What? What's my reason? What's my driver? What am I trying to achieve out of this? And that was the decision that morning that I went, I need to do something different and I want to go into something that's purpose driven. And that's what changed me to come into this industry. And now I absolutely love it. Like, where else would you get that type of feedback that impact, that this is literally life changing? I've never experienced that before and now I'm absolutely hooked. So every time we hear this amazing feedback, it just drives me hotter and hotter and hotter to ensure that we do more and deliver more programs to more people. We've we've recently hit over 100, 100000 hours of connection. And my goals is a million. Somebody thought I said 1,000,000,001 day and I said, let's get to the million first and then we'll we'll focus on the billion. But, you know, it just keeps you going. It motivates you, it inspires you. It just art. It makes you want to be a better person. And I just I love I love everything about what we do.

**Tanya:** Yeah. Beautiful. So tell me about pre coming into this role. How is your leadership style? Has it changed? So you're saying I've changed as a person, but has your leadership style changed too as a result of working in the sector?

**Rachael:** No, no, it hasn't changed that. I've always followed the leadership style of servant leadership style. That's just how I've been. I've always been that person. That's what got me into leadership. I really understood the difference very early on, the difference between and some people don't. The difference between a manager and a leader, they're not the same thing. Just because you are a manager doesn't make you a leader, but also at the same time you don't have to have the manager title to be a leader. And so for me, my philosophy as a leader was always about it's not about me, you know, I'm not here for the title, I'm not here for the accolades. I'm not here because I want to be on the top of the organisation chart here. And in closing, I'm not we have a flat hierarchy here in this organisation, so I don't want to be in fact, actually, I'm here for the team. I'm here for the people that we're here for to ensure that we can actually achieve these things. My job is to support them, give them everything that they need, make sure that they're doing the best that they can and growing them. And I just get out of their way. And if anything, they that's what I'm here for. So now it's funny that throughout my entire career, regardless of how I felt about different roles or changes that I've gone through, I've always remained true to that type of leadership style.

**Tanya:** Great. And what about your people? So growing the people around you? You know, because I think there are times that we see little ones put their heads up and you go, how did I notice you before? There'll be some behaviour. And you go, that's a beautiful leadership behaviour. So, so, you know, building that depth of leadership throughout your organisation, how do you create how do you support the growth of leadership at inclusive?

**Rachael:** yeah, that's a great question. What a beautiful moment. When you see those moments happening where they

 pop up and you go, well, it's just I'm so proud. And, you know, I think in leadership you're about leaders should be making more leaders. That is that is your job. You should be doing that. So you know, I hear it in class saying look at one of the challenges that we have is as an organisation and as a small sort of non-for-profit, is creating some of those opportunities for growth. But I always support our team to grow them regardless of what that might look like and having some real honest conversations about what it is that they wanted to do, where they wanted to go, whether that might be within the walls of inclusivity or whether it might be actually furthering them all and moving on outside of inclusive because we might not have the physical opportunity here. And I think more people need to change that in their leadership discussions and make people comfortable to have those really, really in-depth, true conversations. Because I still think there's a lot of people out there that feel that they can't tell their employer or, you know, I want this is what I want to be in a couple of years and I want to work to, especially if it doesn't matter to the organisation. And I'm all about, no, I want to have those conversations. I want to grow. What do we need to get you to? What skills and gaps do we need to cover and how do we get that learning environment happening for you to get there? So at Inclusive, we have a very large learning and development culture here. We make sure we invest time into our team members so that they're doing learning and development every week. It's part of their structure. We actually physically invest in them to do that as well, and we have those conversations as part of the development plans about where it is that they want to go to. And even with people that are happy in their roles and don't want to do anything more, how do we actually continue to grow their learning and development in that space as well? Because some people go, okay, I don't want to be promoted or I don't want to do any of this. So what does that mean for me? There is opportunity for everyone to continue to learn, and that's something that I'm very passionate about, is, you know, if you're not learning, you're dying. There's there's a bit of that sighted there. And I think you need to always be learning something new or make it something as part of my practice every week that I ensure that I've done something that continues my development every week and I'm always learning.

**Tanya:** And that was going to be my next question, actually. So tell me about how you do. So first for some of our leaders listening or some of our listeners listening and they're going, I just find it really hard. Life gets in the way, and when people think learning, I think they're too quick to jump to a course or a degree or some other type of accreditation that they might like to undertake. Yeah, but what are just some basic things that you can have? So you are actually living. So for me, you know, one of my values is learning. Absolutely. But it doesn't come with another degree and it doesn't come with and, you know, some other accredited course. What does that look like for you? How can people do that?

**Rachael:** Yeah, like I think learning is a bit like exercise. People need to find what works for them. And you're right, you know, it doesn't need to be a course, it doesn't need to be a degree for me. And how I actually do it is I make it my priority. So before I even start my wake, before I and I do a lot of planning around what my wakes look like, but I actually embed the learning development opportunities all time into my calendar and schedule. First. So and I treat it like I treat it as a priority. I treat it as something that you can't look over. You know, a lot of people try to do that type of structure and then life gets in the way and things get busy. What's the first thing that drops out of their calendar? What's the first thing that they'll remove to put another meeting or something in? And I'm like, You need to take that time to invest in yourself. Your priority, especially as a leader, you have to continue to learn because you need to grow that knowledge and be the best support for your team. So if you're not learning and constantly improving on yourself, how can you be the best leader for them? So I think about it from top two points. Is that I need that I'm growth on myself, but I need to do it because as a personal responsibility for my team as well. So I better in my calendar, I better in my schedule. First and foremost, and make sure that's part of part of my weight, part of my life, part of my day to day. And I look at a range of different ways that I can actually do that. It might be an experience that's actually happened during the week that I take a learning from. It might be just going back and spending half an hour on that discussion or that meeting and reflecting on that and go, okay, what went really well with that? What could I have improved on That is learning. You know, it doesn't need to be a course. Sometimes it is a course and sometimes I do courses as well. I do everything from actual physical study to I might do a LinkedIn learning course. Some of them can be like a 15 minute course or a 30 minute course. I love nothing more than doing two things at once, which is usually doing a walk and a bit of exercise, listening to a podcast or listening to something go audiobook or something that I can actually learn from. It could be just reading. You know, one of the things I've always had challenges with is sometimes finding time to write books, but I break it down into smaller parts and go, just read one chapter online and then commit to that, and then I can actually get through those things. Sometimes it might be I'll find articles or different things that I can write about that's happening in the industry to learn more about what's going on in the market and understand those sorts of things. So it could be newsletters, it can be anything. I think people just need to open up and have a wide range of different options to build in their learning. It shouldn't always be one thing. It should be a whole heap of different things.

**Tanya:** and a do you love how you've said, you know, they can be small things? So you talked about habit stacking, you know, so combining those things with, with something that we love doing already, an activity that we love doing, it might be with a partner or something ourselves in relation to exercise. So any of those small incremental things building it into the day. And I think another thing, sometimes we give up too easily, so we sort of set up on our day. It doesn't quite go the way we planned and then we go, I'll leave it until tomorrow. I think if we can if we can section up our day and go, okay, I didn't finish it in the first quarter of the day, but I can do it in my second quarter or my third quarter. Not to just give up on the day because the day then turns into a week, then turns into a month. And before we know it, we're thinking about New Year's resolutions again and we think, well, just started again then. So. So I think don't give up. You know, it's something that we can continually and put it in, putting it into the diary. So for me, exercise is absolutely non-negotiable. That goes in first up in the day so that there is nothing else that can that can prevent it. And I know with my Pilates class in the afternoon, they make me pay for it. If I don't go,

**Rachael:** wow, that's motivation.

**Tanya:** That's another non-negotiable. So absolutely, it will hit my financial bottom line if I don't turn up.

**Rachael:** So sometimes we need that, right? I think sometimes when there's no consequence and, you know, if you're not putting time into learning development, there is absolutely a consequence where people may not see it because like, I've just missed it. I didn't do it. I can't see any physical, tangible thing that I've lost. There. But you've lost knowledge, you've lost something new. There's something that you could have improved on over time or even in the first 15 minutes. You know, that is an opportunity lost and if you don't get back on that horse really quickly, as you said, and really get back into it as soon as possible, you think about how much you've lost over that time. It's incredible to think about absolute outlay we're continuing to build. And something else that you have talked about a few times is reflection. So I think it is a critical skill for a leader is to have that, have that consistency around being able to reflect on their practice, being able to look for ways that they may have done things better, or is it serving me? Is this not serving me? Because sometimes we can get into leadership habits that we don't actually realise that they're no longer serving us. So can you tell us a little bit more about your reflective practice in relation, particularly in relation to leadership?

**Rachael:** Yeah, I do it in a few different ways. So I have a bit of a structure. I have sort of like a daily reflection where I'll I'll spend a bit of sort of the last five, 10 minutes of the day where I'll sort of do a bit of a stop, a pause and think about, about the day, how it went, did I achieve what I wanted to achieve. Am I happy with how things are going? Is there something or a moment in time that I want on to actually think more on or improve on? And that's sometimes where I can

 actually pull my learning development from, is when I've had those reflective things gone. Yeah, you know, I could have done that a little bit better, or maybe I need to work on this. I go right, I got that down and then I actually put a plan in place to go, right? That's going to be my focus of I might do something around a LinkedIn learning course around that, or I might do some length and I can build from that. I have bigger reflection practices as well. So for example, end of financial year of a big moment in time for us as an organisation and I've just spent pretty much most of last week really looking back on the organisation and how it's been tracking over the last six months how we achieved are we going well to where we set our goals. What does that look like, where we where we might be stuck and what might be causing that? But I spend a lot of time in certain moments in time actually reflecting on that, and I've just gone through that. And for here. And in closing, I loved it because I for us at this point in six months, for us, we are, well, a track of where we wanted to be. I'm so proud of what the team achieving and I get so much out of that reflection process. Either I've taken a learning out of it, I've taken something I can work on, but sometimes it's actually just having a proud moment and thinking about how what you've achieved and what the organisation's achieved and what the community has achieved. It's just an incredible thing to do and I really encourage more people to do it. So I do it in a different few different manners. I do it quick, small, small and sharp where I need to. I often also do it in after big moments. So for example, if I've got a big presentation that I need to do or something I need to do with the board, I'll take some time and make sure I carve that out after those events and really make sure I'm undistracted, Sit down and think about what really went well. What what could I work on and how did that go from there? What would I do differently? You know, that's a big question. Constantly, all the time that I go, If I could go back in time, what would I do differently? And sometimes the answer is nothing. Sometimes I get a really a lot of asking myself that question. And then I get I also do the reflective processes as well. So I think reflection can look differently for everybody. But for me, I make sure I structure that into everything that I do and take the time to do it again. It's it's a habit. You need to make that a habit. You need to make it part of your schedule, part of your process.

**Tanya:** Rachael It really sounds you've you've been quite courageous. And when you've come into the organisation, as you said, you've had to really look at the, the model that you came in with and you've really had to think of it very, very differently. You are being courageous in the way that you're looking at the volunteer movement, because that's who you rely on to run your business. There are going to be people listening to this who are coming very much from a fear driven state. So I would love to do that. However, the yes parts, the yes parts and the, you know, lying awake at night going, I would love to do what she's doing. But what would be your words of encouragement to anyone who might have fear preventing them from taking that next step?

**Rachael:** I think when it comes to feel, you know, and I, I actually love what you've got behind you, the idea of all that, where we're actually our own. You know, I think people create this fear or create a barrier, as you would say, around ourselves. It's often what we do to ourselves. You know, it's not other people saying that to us. And I think about back in my career history, in my leadership journey, most of it was terrifying, to be honest. But I always try and push myself and think to myself, But what if I didn't do it? What would I have a regret? And what am I going to lose if I don't give it a go? You know what? What have I got to lose? And I think you need to actually bring it back. And often it's nothing really. It's you lost anything and you've gained a lot. And even if you don't get to where ever that direction or that goal or that place or whatever it is, that role that you're trying to get to, you're giving it a go. You have learned something from that. So you are gaining. No matter what the outcome is, you're gaining knowledge, gaining learning, gaining development so that when you give it a go the next time you actually do it even better. So I think when it comes to fear, people need to really take some time and jot down what that looks like. I think really put it out of your head and put it down on a piece of paper or a notepad or jot it down in on something, even talk about it in a in a recording and talk about why you're feeling that way. You know, what is the challenge around that? What are the barriers, what support do you need? What things do you need to put in place and what things do you need to put in your own structure and development to actually get you there to break that fear down? And a lot of it's confidence, a lot of it comes down to that confidence space. You know, I, I always have that fear of coming into a new role, whether it's in your industry or into a new role or a new team or a new structure, that I have to take that moment to step back and go, I can do this. You know, I always go work, but I don't know everything or what if I don't know this and I don't know this? You get to know those things. And I think being authentic is really important through that process. You know, when I start into a new role or a new organisation, when I started inclusively, I came into the role saying to everybody, I don't know everything about this organisation. I'm brand new into this industry. I want to from you teach me. Sure, I'm here, I'm a big sponge. I want to take it all in. And I think being authentic and demonstrating that to your team because people assume people in leadership roles should know everything and they don't and they shouldn't actually, you know, good leaders, employee team members that are experts in that space. I shouldn't be an expert on. My role as a leader is always to find the best people and the people that can do the right things. And I know how to do that. Doesn't matter what industry or what role I'm in. So I have to take one more step back and reflect on that, reflect about what I have been through, what skills and what strengths can I actually bring to this. But also be aware that I don't don't know all the answers, but I will learn them in time. And that helps break down some of that fear aspect.

**Tanya:** Consistency, breaking things down. As you're listening to this, you can't say what is on the back wall in my office and that is around the only barriers we have in front of us are the ones that we place on ourselves. And for some people they'll look at that and go, Yeah, you can tell that's written by a privileged white woman or something like that. However, the reason that I do have it is there is for me, but also for my team, because it is sometimes challenging our thinking exactly what Rachael said, you know, challenging our thinking is this may with the barrier in front of it, or is that something else that I'm identifying that is preventing this from happening? And more often than not, it's our thinking, it's us overthinking it. It's something that we sort of drag through from childhood that we still carry as a belief and that it's preventing us from taking that next step forward. So so having a go, learning as you go, being very clear, I guess, about, you know, what you are learning along the way. So the next time you try it, it's not going to be as bad, you know, because you've actually had a go and you've gotten it out of your head. So thank you. There's been a lot of really beautiful, consistent themes throughout Rachael, so I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Can we touch on creativity? Because I feel like you're quite a creative, creative soul as a leader. You sort of think of things very differently. How do you inspire creativity within your team that inspiration around innovation, how do you keep that happening within your team so that it's not just all on Rachael to come up with the ideas?

**Rachael:** Yeah, I love that you actually say that because I don't perceive myself to be a creative person. So but I do like to think differently. And, you know, I again, I think I reflect back on finding the right people. You know, I find innovation and creativity through my team, through my people, and often find those answers of what I might be looking for through them. So things that they might be doing or suggestions, you know, feedback and having an open door as a leader and getting people to really be comfortable and bringing their suggestions and ideas to you is one of the biggest blessings that you could ever have is leader. And it's through them that I listen and take time to listen to what it is that they're talking about because they're the experts. They know how something might work or they are the ones that are at the front of what we are doing. And as a service, they know all the issues. They know what's not working. I know how we could do something different. So for me, you know, it's it's not all my ideas. It's it's my team's

 collective ideas and how we can bring that together. And sometimes we find those one little special moments where you have that moment. You go, about that. But we need to do Salt Lake with that. And that is what happened here. And in closing, we started doing face to face social connection programs and we started doing that about eight years ago. It actually started before I came into the organisation on a very basic front and someone said, Well, why can't we do this digitally? And what would be the benefits of those? And it's sort of just taking a basic idea and then learning how to run with that. So what I suppose my strength is, is, as I say, bringing those people together that have those amazing ideas. We've taken our program and then thinking like, how do we make this on a bigger scale? How do we connect more people? How do we have a bigger impact? How does that work? And I always love things that are different. I've actually done that and I've never really actually reflected on that so much before, thinking about reflection. But even in my own businesses that I've personally arms, when I went into those businesses, they were businesses that I did for an investment purpose, but I looked for something that was done but done differently. Something thought, you know, you can't reinvent the wheel. But it was new in the market, it was new in the industry. And I love opportunities like that because it's about learning from those opportunities and finding ways that we can benefit. And one of the ways of doing digital programs is there's so many benefits people to do that they can connect in their own home if they've got a disability that can help them connect in any way that they can without having challenges around that, we can. People all over Australia, there's so many benefits from thinking differently. I think any time as leaders, we need to always challenge ourselves that don't always do things the way that they've always been done. It's one thing that's one sided. I hate when you cover somebody, they go. I go, Why do you do it this way? I go, Well, that's how it's always been done. We need to change that here at Inclusive, nothing isn't concrete. I want to change. It needs to be changed. It needs to be changed if it needs to work better. And so when I think about innovation, I talk to my team. In fact, every year we have a focus. This year is the innovation of inclusive and I think about innovation and I talk about innovation a lot around. It's not just around technology. People think innovations, technology, it can be, but innovation is anything. It can be big or small that has a great change or a great impact to come from that. And people are coming up with those ideas all the time. So I really actually reflect on my team and take those amazing ideas from them and then work out how I can remove those barriers and bring that to life for them. That that's my role.

**Tanya:** So Leadership HQ Outstanding Leader of the Year, CEO of Inclusive. You've heard it here, folks. I don't know everything. I lean into my team, I talk to my team a lot to look for their ideas, canvas their ideas. We like to look at things differently. I'm continually reflecting on my own practice. I'm always looking for ways to learn it all to same. So basic and simple. But it's not that, is it? You know, it's it's it's hard work. Yeah. and that takes its toll after a while. For you as a leader, as a CEO, how do you continue to look after your wellbeing?

**Rachael:** Well, it's a great question because leadership is really hard. You know, I, I don't take this role lightly. I don't take leadership lightly. It's is a lot of investment in my people. And I have been for situations in my leadership journey in which I've come close to burnout a couple of times. I have absolutely learned from those situations about identifying when I when I am getting close to certain things. Resting and relaxation is probably not something I got very good at. So anyone that knows me probably knows I don't stop so often. So but I've learned from those situations and you've got to actually have that self-care in place because it's like anything, if you are not in the best position yourself, how do you care for others? And I've got a caring responsibility to my team, to my community, to our stakeholders, to our board. So everybody that we deal with. So if I'm not in the best possible place, how can I help them? So for me, learning from things that I've done previously and what hasn't worked is making sure that I put structure in place or making sure I love that. You talk about exercise Tylenol on big, on making sure health, health and fitness is in place. In fact, actually, we're doing a 12 week challenge here in closing at the moment that we're trying to get everybody's steps up more. Look, one of the challenges of working as a remote workforces, you could easily get stuck at the desk because you haven't got those, you know, walks down the hallway to go find the staff member. So I'm trying to increase everybody's steps. And I've got a program in place at the bar called Catch the CEO. So they've actually got a great how many steps do a wake up that love a good competition. Love is a bit of competition. So health and wellbeing actually learning to switch off and it's taken me a long time in my career to set those boundaries. Years ago I used to think the motto was The harder you worked, the long hours you worked, the better you must be. And I absolutely think that's rubbish now. So I've completely come from away from that direction and I set clear boundaries. I work within my hours. I don't work more than 40 hours a week. That's probably the most I work in a week because those boundaries are important. I don't want my work life to have impact on my personal life in my family life, and it has before. My eldest daughter probably has plenty of stories where, you know, she was the last kid on the step up and getting picked up because of being stuck at work. And I'm like, That's not what I want to be remembered for. People are not going to remember how many hours I was at work, but my daughter is going to remember that she was the last one to be picked up. So I set those boundaries, make sure that I don't work over those boundaries. I'll make sure that my productivity and my structure is really in place to ensure that happens really effectively. Exercise sleep is the most important thing for me. You know, I talk about it, it's not boring conversation. Sleep should hopefully put people to sleep, but for me it's really important. Like if I don't get a good eight of sleep a night, it does impact me hugely in my productivity. I'm just not the same person. So making sure I have a routine with that, making sure that I'm eating well. It takes so many different things that you've got to put in place to ensure you at your optimum productivity and process. So all of those things, health, exercise, sleep, wellbeing, taking time, setting boundaries, reflecting, taking time off, actually planning out. For me it was a big thing this year. I had actually had a family holiday for a while, so one of my goals I actually set this year was we're going to book a family holiday. We're going to go away on a family holiday. And this is something that I actually have to work towards. I put it in place, I set that goal and we hit it. We went to Singapore for a week this week and I've actually got to celebrate after the awards went on the Monday after the awards night, so that was a great way to go spend some time with the family and go celebrate and take some time out because you really need that.

**Tanya:** Absolutely. Absolutely. and it's self leadership, right? That's that's just leadership and action. But really, as you said, that self-care, it's our own self leadership. The practices that we have in place. Thank you for sharing so many important things. And I think you really that spectrum around the physical, the emotional, the psychological, all like we've got to think of all of those things and when we're taking that time out for us. So so thank you for sharing. Is it anything for you, Rachael, before we so we've been talking for an hour. I find that hard to believe. Every now and then I look down and it's like, my goodness, we've been talking for an hour. Is there anything for you that you felt like we could have or should have talked about and we haven't or anything that you'd hoped that we'd talk about? We haven't.

**Rachael:** You know, I think it's been a fantastic time. I think we've had a great conversation about a range of different things. And what I loved is that you opened with about how passionate you are about talking about leadership. And I feel exactly the same. I'm so privileged to be a leader. For me, it's absolute honor to be a leader, and I love talking about it. I love talking with other leaders about the fantastic things that they're doing. But for me, it's about imparting, you know, what my experiences of being, what have I learned from and what do I do to help all the leaders learn and grow from them as well? and listening to a podcast like this is a great way of learning the development of how you can actually improve your own space as well. So I love that you started with help. How much you love talking about leadership, because I could talk for hours about it.

**Tanya:** I kind of feel the same way, to be honest. I feel like we're on the same wavelength there. Absolutely. So yeah. So thank you so much for your time. It has been an absolute privilege to talk to you. I love talking

 to other leaders who have very much on that shared space around. We're continuing to learn, We're continuing to grow. It is a practice. And thank you for sharing so much about inclusive. It has been wonderful to learn more about your incredible organisation and the amazing work that you're doing there to connect. Because from a wellbeing perspective, what we know is that at any given point in time, over 80% of our population is languishing. They're really struggling and inclusive, are making a huge difference in improving that. So social connection for people. So congratulations on the great work that you are doing. Thank you so much for joining us and taking time out of your really busy day to have a chat.

**Rachael:** My pleasure. Look, as I said, this is important to me. Taking this time and learning from and hoping that hopefully the conversation inspires somebody to do something different or to overcome those fears that we've talked about. So maybe challenge themselves and do something that improves their leadership. Well, it was an absolutely worth investing.

**Rachael:** So my absolute pleasure and time to thank you so much for having me. I absolutely love that.

**Tanya:** you're beautiful. Thank you so much. Thanks for the work you do. Congratulations again on your award. Very well-deserved, I'm sure. Everyone listening, Skye? Absolutely understand while she was awarded the Outstanding Leader of the Year. So thank you, Rachael, for any of our listeners. Thank you for joining us. We really do appreciate your time. Please jump on, have a look and include his website. You will have a link with this podcast. You'll be able to go on and have a look. And don't forget to ask your employer for some time out that you can actually be a volunteer at Inclusive. If you would like to, sir, jump on there and find out more. And for everyone else, we'll see you next time. I hope you enjoyed

**Narrator:** Sometimes the issues we discuss in this podcast series may be triggering for some people. If you've been affected by the topics with talk about today, please reach out to someone for help. Alternatively, you can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 1114, or you can use the chat option on their website. If you live in the Wide Bay BURNETT region, you can also reach out to us at Impact Community Services. Please visit Impact Portal to write today. Click on the make a referral button at the top of the page if you wish to Self-Refer. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and if so, please remember to hit the subscribe button. Until next time, remember, we're stronger together.