Episodes
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
Gabrielle Claiborne: Creating Environments of Belonging Worldwide
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
Gabrielle Claiborne is Co-Founder and CEO of Transformation Journeys Worldwide, a cutting-edge transgender-focused inclusion training and consulting firm. Her passion is teaching businesses, religious and civic organizations, schools, educational institutions, healthcare providers and municipalities what they need to know to create an environment of belonging for transgender, gender nonconforming and non-binary patients, customers, colleagues, congregants and kids. At Transformation Journeys Worldwide they believe that, when all people are respected and empowered, we all win — and our world becomes a better place.
Learn more about Transformation Journeys Worldwide.
Learn more about The Passionistas Project.
Full Transcript:
Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same.
We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Gabrielle Claiborne. Her company Transformation Journeys Worldwide is a cutting edge, transgender focused inclusion, training, and consulting. Her passion is teaching businesses, religious and civic organizations, schools, and educational institutions, healthcare providers, and municipalities, what they need to know to create an environment of belonging for transgender, gender nonconforming and non-binary patients, customers, colleagues, congregants, and kids at transformation, journeys, worldwide. They believe that when all people are respected and empowered, we all win and our world becomes a better place.
So please welcome to the show. Gabrielle Claiborne.
Gabrielle: Thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to be with you today.
Passionistas: Well, we can't wait to share your story with our listeners and to have this conversation, we've been very excited for it.
So what would you say is the one thing you're most passionate about
Gabrielle: Most passionate about is making sure that when I wake up in the morning that that I lean into that day with, with every fiber of my being and that I show up and the, and the best way that I can show up in integrity with who I know myself to be authentically, hopefully, and given the opportunity to inspire others, to live their highest, uh, as their highest and best self.
That is one thing that I try to do every time I wake up and.
Passionistas: Tell us how you help other people do that through your company, Transformation Journeys Worldwide, and the path to starting that.
Gabrielle: Early on in my transition. I have always felt purposeful as an individual in, early on in my transition. I wanted to find what was mine to do.
And so, uh, as I, uh, as I began exploring, you know, what was mine to do, I actually started seeing a life coach and she. Taught me how to live out of my heart space. And when I started living out in my heart space, I realized that I did not have to find what was mine to do. The more that I showed up authentically and embracing my truth of who I was.
Opportunities and doors opened up for me and allowed me to step into new spaces that allowed me to show up more, authentically, more powerfully owning my own voice. And as a result of that seven years ago, uh, my business partner and I coped a transgender inclusion and training from transformation journeys worldwide.
So today we help a myriad of organizations, whether it's Fortune 100, 500 companies, whether it's mental or medical health care providers, whether it's educational institutions, spiritual communities, and even municipalities on their journey of transforming their environments into fully inclusive cultures for transgender nonconforming and non-binary individuals. And this has been a labor of love for me in many ways. I guess you could say that I live my work as so to speak. You know, I wake up every morning, not really feeling like I'm going to work because I'm showing up advocating for my trans gender nonconforming and non-binary siblings.
And, uh, it just, it gives me a great joy to know that every day that I, that I stepped into this world, that I'm living a purposeful life and I'm hopefully making it possible for someone who is coming behind me and their own journey of authenticity to be a little easier. So we're helping them. These cultures, uh, create these inclusive spaces for these individuals to show up so that they can live authentically in these spaces. So I find great joy and, and a world-changing purpose as a result of that,
Passionistas: Talk a little bit about why it's important to give these organizations the tools that they need and that you are offering so that they can create that respectful space for all gender identities and expressions.
Gabrielle: Well, the reason it's important is because, uh, this is a growing demographic, uh, just a couple of months. Uh, the Williams Institute came out with a statistic that in the U S there are 1.2 million non-binary individuals. And in 2017, a Harris bowl revealed a statistic that 12% of millennials identify as some form of trans or non-binary. So this is one of the business case reasons for why organizations are really leaning into this conversation.
Understanding. What they need to do in order to be an employer of choice for this demographic. So what they're understanding is that this journey of creating this inclusive culture is not only does it not only require a partial cultural competency of their employees. Uh, the employees, excuse me, but it also requires them to look at their organizational cultural competency.
So in our trainings, we offer individuals, his strategies and suggestions on how to interact respectfully. With this demographic, understanding how to navigate the conversation around pronouns respectfully, right? Because we can no longer make assumptions around, you know, what pronoun and individual uses, especially those individuals who identify as some form of gender nonconforming or non-binary who uses they, them or theirs, or even ze/hir ze/zir pronouns as their personal pronouns. We also share strategies with them on how to push back on offensive jokes and comments and quality, why this is important for not only the trans and gender nonconforming or non-binary individual in the workplace, but also for those colleagues who may have. TGGNCNB children or, um, family members.
Right? So these are some of the reasons why organizations are really leaning into this conversation and, you know, the good thing, the thing that we help our audiences understand is that. Sometimes it requires getting comfortable with being uncomfortable in the spirit of learning to do better. And the good news is, is there a lot of organizations that are really wanting to be intentional in creating, having spaces for these crisis conversations and creating these inclusive cultures?
So they're taking it to the next level and looking at things like the policy. There are restrooms, how they connect not only within the four walls of their organization, but how they're showing up outside of their organization through their supplier diversity initiatives, through their, uh, involvement and local LGBTQ, uh, communities like the LGBTQ chamber of commerce or their local pride.
So there's a lot of moving parts and pieces. That requires an organization to create this culture. And it is a journey. It is not a destination. And that's one thing. These organizations are really recognizing.
Passionistas: What does it mean to you to be able to have this kind of impact on all these different types of organizations and beyond into the culture, beyond their work?
Gabrielle: I appreciate you bringing that question up because I'll never forget the first time. That Gabrielle showed up in corporate America, fully aligned, right? I'll never forget sitting in the lobby of our, one of our first clients. And I looked at my business partner. We were waiting on our, our client to come out and greet us.
And I looked at her and I said, Linda, do you realize what is just about to happen? We, I am. We are show up in December. Fully authentic for the very first time. And I reflect back over that moment because it was a surreal experience for me. And it's a surreal experience knowing that not only I experienced that, but other individuals have the opportunity to show up in spaces within these organizations who were doing the work to have that same experience.
And to know that your. You're moving the needle every time you're showing up, it just, it does my heart. Good to know that I am leaving a legacy for folks that hopefully have a path that is a little easier than the path that I had to navigate. So, you know, again, I wake up every morning feeling like I'm not going to work.
I've just feel like that I'm showing up advocating for the. Who needed to be advocated for. So it's just a great joy. And you know, when we have. You know, now that we're seven years into our iteration as a business. Now we're having folks reach out to us as opposed to us reaching out and marketing our services to prospective clients.
And knowing that these folks are actually finding us and saying, Hey, we heard you do this work. We want to start the conversation, but we don't know where to start. Can you help us knowing that they're reaching out to us and they're finding us wanting to have these conversations. It just really makes. The work that we're doing all the more rewarding.
Passionistas: You said that the transgender community and the nonbinary communities or the demographic is growing. So is the opportunity for businesses like this also growing, do you find that there are more companies reaching out to you and, and what are they asking for? Why do they come to you? Is there a specific reason or incident that makes them reach out to you?
Gabrielle: They're recognizing that in order for them to be an employer of choice, that they have to get over. And here's the thing, you know, we all know that the, the workplace demographic is changing. I mean, just in three or four years, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce.
And there was a recent pew research poll that, uh, in 2018 that indicated that while millennials personally knew someone, 25% of millennials personally knew someone who uses gender neutral pronouns, Gen Z years, 36% of Gen Z years personally knew someone. Who was, who uses gender neutral pronouns or they, them and theirs as their pronouns.
So you can see with the, uh, with the, the advancement of generations, these generations are becoming more gender inclusive. So in order for them to set themselves up as that employer of choice and to attract and retain that talent and the workplace. They're really recognizing the need to get on board and they are doing just that.
And so when they approach us, they're, you know, a lot of times our clients don't know what they don't know, so we kind of help them understand, you know, first of all, when we have. That first call with them where we have a disclosure conversation of just kind of where you are on your own journey of understanding gender diversity.
We kind of understand from that perspective, how to guide them of where to start, whether it's in a Trans 101 or whether it's a more focused training for HR talent acquisition, or even it, uh, so it depends on where they are meeting them where they are is. But, uh, making sure that they understand, and this is the one thing that we tried to impress on our clients is that this is not just a 60 or 90 minute conversation.
This is a commitment to a journey. You know, while you may have a 90 minute one-on-one training with your. There's much more work to do. So there are other organizations like my, my company who are actually working with organizations, setting them up for success or these gender diverse demographics.
Passionistas: And so do you work with companies long-term? Do you help them set up kind of ongoing programs to continue the education?
Gabrielle: We do all the above. Yes. And you know, we meet a client where they are, by the way, to, to your earlier question. Oftentimes clients reach out to us when someone is transitioning in the workplace. Th this is perhaps their first gender diverse individual who is showing up authentically in the workplace.
And so consequently, they want to make sure that they're doing the right thing, not only for this employee, but for all the other employees and colleagues around this individual. So making sure that this is oftentimes. You know, how, why clients are reaching out to us. You know, when they're wanting to wanting support, we're doing a 90 minute one-on-one training with clients.
We are actually supporting clients throughout their entire journey of creating inclusive culture for gender diversity individuals, which, uh, requires us to look at training specific trainings. Like I mentioned earlier for HR managers, you know, how does a manager, uh, support. Uh, gender diverse individual on their team, whether they are hired.
Or whether that individual transitions on their team, how does a manager support that individual as well as manage, you know, the other members of that team, you know, we offer support for, uh, facility individuals who are creating these, this. All gender restrooms and workplaces understanding, you know, steps that you need to take in order to make them work for not only trans individuals that identify as binary women or men, but also non-binary individuals who identify as some form of male or female or a combination of both.
So, uh, it is a journey and we just recently had a client of ours ups. You actually rolled out a, uh, initiative around their dress code policy, making it inclusive for their non-binary individuals. And ups has almost 500,000 employees globally. So we were very instrumental in Hedland helping that client roll out that, uh, inclusive, uh, dress code policy.
So that was. We, we felt like that was a huge win for us. So again, meeting our clients where they are and supporting them as their needs come up, that they need support in.
Passionistas: So how can people find a Transformation Journeys Worldwide and what can they expect when they approach.
Gabrielle: I am all over the social medias. I'm on a LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram. Our website is Transformation Journeys, ww.com. And I'll also let the audience know that we have a wonderful resource. For you to use as a learning tool for you, wherever you are on your journey of understanding and interacting respectfully with gender diverse individuals, we have a lot of, uh, terms and definitions.
We have a lot of videos and it's specific for a specific market. So again, we're trying to meet our partners, our prospective clients, where are they? So that they can see themselves in our work and a great way to reach out to us. You can go to our contact page on our website, send us an email, and we will be, uh, responsive to that, uh, inquiry and get back with you. And we can set up a call to talk about next steps.
Passionistas: You're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Gabrielle Claiborne. To learn more about her work, visit Transformation Journeys ww.com.
If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the Passionistas Project dot com backslash Podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions.
Now here's more of our interview with Gabrielle.
You've talked a little bit about living authentically. So why is that so important and how has living authentically transformed your life personally?
Gabrielle: I think I have to go back a little bit to answer that question. And I would start at when I was eight years old or even a little younger, you know, I, when I was a young child that I knew that there was something different about. You know, I grew up in a very conservative environment. My daddy is a Pentecostal preacher. I'm actually a fourth generation Pentecostal preacher's kid.
So, and this was long before the days of the internet. So I didn't have the language to understand, you know, what was going on inside of me. So consequently, I did what culture expects of a cisgender male to do. I got married to a beautiful. We had three amazing children. I had a very successful career owning multiple businesses in the construction industry, and I was a very prominently.
And our church, a large church here in the Atlanta area, Atlanta, Georgia area. And so by all outward appearances, you know, I had life by the tail, but the reality was I was living a life of turmoil because of this internal gender dilemma, which I still had no words to describe. I was 45 years old. I accidentally stumbled across a website showing pictures of trans women.
And when I saw these images immediately, That's me. So I spent the next five years doing online research, living between the exhilaration of knowing that's me and the despair of thinking. I can never live my life as a woman that would change my world, turn my world upside down. But after going through all of this turmoil, I finally decided to get help.
And it was been in my online research. I found a woman. By the name of Ramona who actually made a living, dressing, biological males as women. Now, this just goes to show you that you can find anything on the internet if you're looking for it. Well, I finally mustered the courage to make an appointment with her.
On the day of the appointment, Anzaldua, driving to her home, I was just, I was a nervous wreck, but as soon as she, as soon as she greeted me at her door and ushered me upstairs to her dressing salon, I thought I had died and gone to the cabin. And so she spent the night. You hours dressing me head to toe in my true feminine expression with the clothes, the heels, the wig, the makeup, the jewelry, this says stories.
And when she got done, she walked away and I saw myself in the mirror for the very first time I was 45. I was 49 years old and meeting myself for the very first time. And it was in a. That's me. So I answered that question by saying, because I live so long in authentically, I knew, and there were a number of invitations in my life that invited me to get honest with what my heart was saying about who I was as a.
Long ago, even though I met myself, you know, 40 years later after living an authentic wide. And so meeting myself the very first time, set me on the course of finding what was mine to do. And it turned my life upside down with my family, with my children, with my parents and sister who by the way, have chosen not to have any contact with me since coming out 11 years.
Uh, with my vocation, with my spiritual community. So understanding these perceived risk and pain that I might experience, I realize over the course of the last year or last 11 years, that they pale in comparison to live in an inauthentic life and waking up at the end of the biolife and looking back and saying, did I do all I could do?
To be in integrity with who I was created to be. So I've learned that the power of authenticity sets us up for success. Yes. The path to authenticity is not a straight line and yes, it has some bumps and difficulties along the way. But the view on the other side of authenticity is like, no, So
Passionistas: Talk a little bit about those bumps. Like give, give some advice to someone who might be contemplating going through this. Not quite sure the steps to take and, and the, and the biggest stumbling block perhaps is that reaction from family and friends. And do you have any advice for people going through that?
Gabrielle: First responses by my book. Embrace Your Truth the Journey of Authenticity uh, which came out last year, it is a memoir meets self-help book, uh, which is, uh, uh, a capitulation of my personal transition story. But it's also an invitation to an individ, to those individuals who are looking to embrace an aspect of their own authentic authenticity, whatever that looks.
For the, you know, it just so happens that one aspect of my authenticity authenticity is my gender identity. That I am a transgender woman, but I am so much more than just a transgender woman. So the book was written for also the larger audience. But some of the things that I had to learn along the way was I talk about in chapter two, the importance of building a support system, because anytime we undertake a significant aspect of our truth, stepping into our truth a lot of time, that's a lot of times that step or those subsequent steps are going to impact those around us.
So it's important to understand that this is not a journey to be traveled. So it's important to build that support system around you. That is going to be there when you can't get out of bed. I remember nights after night, waking up with my pillow drenched with my tears because of the reaction that my family was having.
You know, towards my transition and learning, how do I navigate that to be in integrity with who I know myself to be, and at the same time, honor them and honor their journey of where they're trapping and where they are. Right? So this support system is crucial to be able to, to be, be there for you as you're navigating that.
Another thing I learned was to honor the voice of my heart. You know, as I was growing up, I was taught to not pay attention to your, your intuition or your feelings because they will mislead you. Oh my goodness. Was I misled because as I've learned over the course of my journey of embracing my true. That it was actually my heart talking to me through, you know, my drains through my bodily symptoms, through my intuitions, our hearts, talk to us in five languages and understanding that I should pay attention to those things in order to live my most authentic life and understanding how to do that.
I that's why I had to go see that live coach for a year. And she told me. She taught me how to get out of my head and into my heart and listen to my heart. And what I realized and learned over the course of that year was that I can do that and that my heart will not mislead me. I'll also learn the importance of holding space for those who are in my life and allow them to travel their journeys around.
Whatever you don't mind journey of authenticity looks like for me and how it implicates them, right. Or the impacts that it has on them. Because you know, a lot, often times, a lot of friends who are embarking on a similar journey that I've traveled the last 11 years, they asked me say, Gabrielle, how did you navigate this with your family, your spouse and your kids.
And I tried. Uh, support them and help them understand that even though this is our journey, it's also their journey as well. And you can't expect them to turn on a dime. You know, when I saw myself for the very first time, met myself in the mirror, it would have been unreasonable for me to then approach my family and say, here I am, this is the new me and expect them to welcome me with open arms.
And in fact, it took me two years. Before I actually approached all of my family members and let them know who I was and tenants it's, it's been the last nine years of navigating those journeys with him, holding space for them, allowing them to grieve the loss of the person that they thought they were.
Right. And then redefining what it looks like moving forward. You know, one of the, one of the things that we have realized my family speaking, speaking of my children and my ex-spouse, one of the things that we've had learned navigate is, you know, the special rec, uh, dates of recognition that we recognized here in the U S like father's day, you know, how do we celebrate father's day down?
Do you, are you still are. Well, what does that work? What does that look like for you? So it's having those courageous conversations often difficult, oftentimes difficult conversations with your kids, understanding that you still want to be there for them as their parent, but finding a place, finding a space, finding a, um, a resolution that works for you.
And works for them. So those are just a few things that I've learned over the course of my journey. Uh, I'll share one other bit of information with the audience and that is, I encourage you to also check out my Ted talk, building your courage muscles, because in that Ted talk, I'll talk about three things that we all have to do, regardless of what truth we're trying to unearth within.
To step more into our authenticity. And the one is listening to your heart. As I mentioned previously, the other one is not, not necessarily needing to have a roadmap before you take that first courageous step. I know when I came out, I had to listen to my heart and I, it wasn't until I took that first courageous.
That I learned what my second and third and fourth steps were. It was that first step that informed those steps. And it, it was after taking that courageous step, that those second, third and fourth steps became a little easier. And as I took those steps, I became, I became more courageous and bold and stepping into those steps.
And also the final thing is understanding that, you know, the journey of authenticity is not a destination. The journey of authenticity is just that it's a journey. And we, every day, how we show up today determines our tomorrow. And so it's important to live in the moment, learn what we have to live today, so that as we approach tomorrow, we're setting ourselves up for success.
Passionistas: You've been on this journey for 11 years, but in writing the book, was there something that you discovered about yourself from that process that surprised you?
Gabrielle: That book has been the most vulnerable piece of work that I've done to date because I laid it all on the line. I, I shared with the reader, the things that, you know, I made mistakes with in my past.
And come to terms with those things. I mean, you know, over the course of my journey, I've, I've learned the importance of recognizing and reframing those failures, those disappointments as invitations, as opposed to things that, that I'm not good enough or that I'm, you know, that I should be guilt, uh, shameful for.
Right. Uh, but writing the book invited me. Deal a little bit more with forgiving myself and working through that grief process, you know, being gentle with myself. And I will tell you, as I wrote. Aspects parts of this book, parts of the book, there were these feelings that came up again, and I had to, I had to grieve things.
I had to go through the forgiveness process and kid, I thought I was done with this. All. I had to learn that there was more work to do. So yeah, writing this book, uh, has been the most vulnerable. Way that I've shown up, but this is one thing I've also learned that it was, it was also a way that I could, that I could show myself and honor, honor, may four, or having navigated those difficult moments in my life.
And to, to say, you know, If I can do that, then there's other things that I'm ultimately going to face down the road that I'm going to have to navigate. But I, you know, part, part of writing the book allowed me to build those milestones in my life that I can look back to what I needed courage and, and encouragement and think, well, have I did there, if I made it to there, I can keep moving forward.
I can take that next step. So. It is a vulnerable piece of work, but I feel like the more we're vulnerable, I think that invites other folks to be vulnerable with themselves as well.
Passionistas: How can we as allies best support the LGBTQ plus community?
Gabrielle: Well, a couple of things that you can do is you can educate yourself. The good thing is that there are so many great resources out on the internet right now. That you can, you can invest in your own education. You know, oftentimes I think organizations and individuals make the mistake of relying on their trans friends, their trans family members, their trans colleagues to educate them, but not every trans gender nonconforming.
And non-binary individual wants to bear the burden of educating you as an ally. We are, we're all about supporting you in your. But we're also wanting you to take the initiative, uh, and the responsibility, right. To do your own work. And when you do your own work, when you take that initiative to do your own work, you're going to learn a lot.
That's why I shared our resources page in the earlier conversation, because it's a great resource that you can use to educate yourself. Another thing that you can do is understand how to use pronouns. You know, like I said, We can automate assumptions about what pronoun an individual uses, especially in our new virtual world, right?
If we're on a call with a gender diverse individual and we're not identifying no pronouns, or we're not giving them the opportunity to identify their pronouns, especially in online, your individual that uses . We're not acknowledging them for who they are. So being intentional and creating these spaces to use your, you know, where you can use your pronouns.
It goes a long way and normalizing our experience and helping us feel like not only are we safe, but this is a space where we can belong your pronouns in your email signature. If you have bios on your website, but your pronouns there as well. When you introduce yourself, How are you introducing yourself?
How do you navigate that conversation with your gender diverse brand family member colleague? And what we recommend is, you know, when you introduce yourself, you say, hi, my name is Gabrielle and my pronouns. Are she her about you? But the, how about you does, is it sends a message to the person that you're talking with.
That one, you understand the importance of pronouns and. Did you want to connect with them in a respectful way, and you're not placing the burden on them to educate you on the importance of pronouns, you know? And when, when you start doing this and you know, don't think that you won't make a mistake because the question is not.
If it's, when we're kind of all make mistakes in the spirit of learning to do better. And if you make a mistake, you simply apologize. You don't make a big deal about it. You say, look, I'm just. I'm committed. I'm still learning. I'm committed to do better and do better. You know, as trans people, we understand that when someone innocently miss pronouns or mis-genders us and the spirit of learning to do better, as opposed to when someone does it deliberately, you know, another thing that you can do as allies is understand, understand, understand why it's important, not to deadname.
Deadnaming us is using our pre-transition name. This is fair. This is considered very disrespectful by trans people. Another thing you can do is afford curious questions about anatomy or surgeries. You know, our anatomy has nothing to do with our identity. There are completely different. It doesn't define who we are as people.
And the same thing was surgeries. You know, not all trans gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals may elect to pursue all aspects of physical transitions. One, it may not be their personal journey and two, they may not have the resources to pursue all of these aspects of physical transition. So understand and avoid use, asking questions. Those curious questions goes a long way and showing respect. And those are just a few things that you.
Passionistas: So what's your dream for the TGNCNB community?
Gabrielle: Oh, my goodness. Monitoring for my community is just what I said earlier is for folks to recognize that we have more in common than not that we are just another expression of the human experience, that our gender identity is just one aspect of all that we bring.
So the table of all that we bring to the conversation of all that we bring to a relationship of all that we bring to a workplace. Right? We have, we are, we are qualified individuals. We are competent individuals. And if you give us a chance, we will show you that we can, we can set your organization of.
Yeah, we can set yourself your organization up for success. We can create, we can help create an inclusive environment in your organization that improves innovation that improves your collaboration right. And ultimately improves your bottom line, but it starts getting comfortable with getting uncomfortable and having those courageous conversations and re and really understanding.
You know who we are as human beings, we are first human beings and then all of the other intersections that we bring, then those that show up.
Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Gabrielle Clayborne, to learn more about her work, visit Transformation Journeys, Ww.com.
Please visit the Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription with the code Fall Mystery, and be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.
Until next time stay well and stay passionate.
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
Tuesday Oct 12, 2021
Kylee Stone is a descendant of the Wakka Wakka and Kulluli First Nations with 25 years in the business of storytelling. She has an intrinsic talent in the power of personal stories to create meaningful connections. Certified in the neuroscience of resilience, Kylee’s mission is to disrupt the status quo on the traditional view of leadership and enable people with the courage to take action in direct accordance with their vision, values, passion and purpose.
Read more about Kylee.
Learn more about The Passionistas Project.
Full Transcript:
Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Kylee Stone, a descendant of the Wakka Wakka, and Kalali First Nations with 25 years in the business of storytelling and an intrinsic talent in the power of personal stories to create meaningful connections certified in the neuroscience of results.
Kylee's mission is to disrupt the status quo on the traditional view of leadership and enable people with the courage to take action and direct accordance with their visions, values, passion, and purpose. So please welcome to the show Kylee Stone.
Kylee: Thank you. So good to be here with the two of you.
Passionistas: We're so happy to have you here. What are you most passionate about?
Kylee: I am passionate about the relationship between design and storytelling — so the design of storytelling and its ability to influence the way that we lead specifically, and more importantly, women’s ability to do that. And when I say that, because I do believe that as an indigenous person and I'll, and I'll reference that… our cultural background is fundamentally historic.
And what we know about storytelling is very different from a cultural perspective to what we know in the world today. But when we do look at that, fundamentally, the whole purpose of that really is, if you imagine sitting around a fireplace, for example, which, you know, from an indigenous cultural point of view is more around fire, where you would have people.
You know, there was no language for it as what we've created today, but certainly it was all about people connecting. It was just about the connection of people. And so when we look at that lens and we put that over the world today, you know, if we even dissect, I suppose, the entertainment industry — movies, you know, I love drama, right? I love a good story. But great drama is based on a great story. And when we look about our relationship to the story, I think there's always a real connection where, you know, if you go to a great film and you cry, there's definitely a great story in that. You know, there's an immediate connection with us as a human being. So for me, I like to be able to take that, in terms of its architecture, and apply it to.
Each of us has an individual understanding how that works for us at the level of human being, and then how that influences our strength, our character, our courage, and fundamentally the way we communicate so that we have the experience of being able to pursue what it is that is important.
And for me, what that means is being able for a woman to express and experience her own self-expression. In terms of leadership for me, that's very different from what I've been raised in. I say this whole thing about a new paradigm of leadership because in my generation, I was raised pretty much in a model where you've got companies that are designed basically out of the industrial revolution, right, where it's very much a command and control method. But I think for me, I'm not saying it's not about change, so I'm very clear, it's not about change now. I'm not here to change. I'm here to create something new. And when we create something new, we're not changing the old we're actually just at work on crafting a new future.
And that for me is really designed around women leading the way on that because I do think women are natural nurturers. They're natural storytellers. And I think that's where we can get a real transformation.
Passionistas: Let's take let's step back. Tell us about your heritage and particularly your grandmother and mother.
Kylee: Well, I'll start with my grandmother. So. My grandmother was, uh, born and raised at a controlled country. So I'm a descendant of the, a couple of nations. One is the Wakka Wakka nations, which is where my grandmother was born and her mother. So my great grandmother was a tree, was originally from a place called Kalali, which is when we talk about our nations.
It's really the air in the region as an Aboriginal person. And. Um, some, a descendant of what what's called the stolen generation, which was a group of indigenous people who, children who were removed from their family because they were considered half. So the Wakka Wakka area was, was where a lot of the indigenous.
So when the British came, they moved all the indigenous people out of their, their, their communities. And they put them into, I'm not sure what the technical term that you would call it, but they'd put them into areas. And one of those areas was called Wakka Wakka. So Wakka Wakka was not an original nations.
It was. Multiple nations. And so my grandmother was removed from Kalali and taken to Wakka Wakka when she was discovered to be pregnant. And she was pregnant to the men who she was on a farm with. So she was already moved originally to a place where she was at which at two years old. So at two years old, she was taken from her family, put into a, essentially with the local school teacher and his family.
So, you know, whilst on the one hand, you know, we look from the view called, oh my goodness. She was, she was removed from her family, how awful she wasn't put into an environment where she was not taken care of from the other way. When we look, you know, she was with a school teacher and his wife and their family.
So she was there till she was 20. In her late twenties and then fell pregnant. And we have paperwork that actually says she wrote a letter basically to the police department, letting them know that she had fallen pregnant to the, to the gentlemen who was the, the owner of the property. But of course he denied.
So that was when she was moved. So then she was moved to Wakka Wakka and, you know, within, I think six months later, she had gave birth to my grandmother in the Wakka Wakka region. And then all the women who were single and had children, there were homes for them on this property. So there was a home where there was the kids, there was a home where there was the mothers. Children.
And then there was the rest of the community. And so she might, my grandmother was born and then in this particular part of the village. And so when she was three that the government had come in with buses, from what school here, the salvation army and the buses came in to take all the children who were half cast.
So if they looked like they were white, they were taken and removed. To a salvation army residence where they were believed to be being raised for a bit of a better education and a better future that will given that we're given education, basically. So again, you know, uh, my grandmother was three taken from her mother.
So you know that there is trauma and there's, uh, you know, horrifying kind of, you never want your daughter to be taken from your mother, you know, and nor do to your right. And at the same time, you know, if we look from the other view, you know, she's, she was given education education and she was given these other opportunities.
So that was, that was my grandmothers, my grandmother, and right. My grandmother's story. So my grandmother had married a British man and they had children. There was some dysfunction in that relationship, you know, as for whether I can speak the truth to that. I really, I can't, I can't because sadly my grandmother's no longer here, but my, it was my grandma.
It was a situation where my grandmother felt like she needed to leave. So she left and left my grandfather with all the. So there was my mother, my mother's dead. My mother was five twin sisters. She had twin sisters who were two years old. They had a brother and an older brother, so there was four of them.
So he moved them into a home salvation army home, bizarrely enough. So at five years old mum was taken from a family and put into there with her sisters. And she, she lived there till she was 15, basically. So for 10 years, from five to 15, She stayed there on this property and then came out and one year later, after coming out, she fell pregnant with, with me.
And so technically, uh, when I, when I started to, uh, understand the story, I discovered, you know, it was in the seventies. So I discovered that actually I was technically the first woman out of four generations to not have been taken away from or removed from my mother and in some respects. So yeah, it's.
Uh, I think in the wa you know, it made me question actually, because I think when I looked back at the timing of that, you know, the seventies where the, the, the, the civil rights movement, there was a big push around women's liberation. And, you know, my mother was only 16 at the time. And at that time, she was told that if she gave birth to.
She would not be welcome home because any woman who had a child out of wedlock, they would take the children from them. Now they didn't go to take the children from her, but they said to her, if you have this child, you're not coming home, you know, it's like disown the family, which is very common, you know, it wasn't, it's like, you know, we look at that now.
Oh my God, that's just atrocious. But it was very common back then for a lot of women. In fact, it was only until 2012 that the government here actually did a national apology to all the women who gave. To children in the seventies and had their children's take taken away from them. So there was a generation of children who are now my age, who were raised without their biological parents, because they were out of wedlock.
So it's kind of serendipitous too, in terms of my mother, she just clearly decided to be some kind of rebel and decided, no, that's not, that's not how it's going to go.
Passionistas: She must have been incredibly strong to make that decision in the midst of that.
Kylee: I think to myself, imagine being 16 years old in a hospital by yourself, isolated, having your family say, we don't want to part of it.
And now you're stuck here. They did. I was in a waiting room for four weeks. They'd actually filled out all the adoption papers and she'd had four weeks to make the decision. And it was, she said it was the last day. She said it got to the last day. And she said, I just could not, I couldn't do it. I just could not bring myself to think about what it would look like if I had to try and find you.
Passionistas: So how, how did those experiences impact your childhood and did they impact your life to this day?
Absolutely as a kid, I would say no way. You know, I, I, I, my nickname as a kid was Smiley Kylee. I was a joyful kid. You know, my mother was 16, so she had lots of great friends around her and her friend's parents actually.
So she had a lot of support that way. So I none, the wiser, you know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know. So as. I don't know, except definitely subconsciously The, there was a, like, one of the things that I'm now dealing with is the, you know, the there's the whole theory around attachment theory.
And you know, one of the things that, you know, because I was not raised in a very stable, traditional household, I was moved around a lot. So I'm not very attached to people. And that has been really difficult. You know, I've, I've lost my grandfather just recently. And it was really challenging because it was the first time I'd had, you know, I've only ever really lost grandparents.
I've not had the experience. Well, we've had close friends, very young to pass. It's just a very different experience. Cause it's a tragedy, but people relatively close to. You know, I, I, I had this experience called God. I felt like a real cold beach, you know, because I just, I wasn't emotional, you know, I wasn't this really torn upset person.
And I really, it challenged me because I thought, oh my God, what is wrong with you? You know, that was my immediate, what is wrong with you? I spoke to some friends of mine. One of whom is just got a background psychology, and she's just an extraordinary human in terms of what she knows. And she said, you know, she explained the whole thing about grief and this attachment theory.
And I went, God, that explains everything. You know, the, the way I was raised, the knot I learned to not be attached, I was the kid that you could stick in the middle of the room and she'd be happy with anybody, you know? And so if I look at it from that perspective, it was like, well, of course. She, she expects people.
I gotta leave, you know, and it wasn't a problem for me as a kid. In fact, it's one of my greatest skills, even as an adult, you know, I've mobilized, you know, I'm my, my whole strength. In fact, it's very aligned even to my cultural background. I'm all about community. I'm all about others. I'm all about, you know, being of service to everybody else.
And you know, I, you can stick me in the middle of anywhere and I'll blend with anybody. And I think I've always fought for that. I've always fought for, for diversity and equality and injustice and, you know, enhance why it's no accident. I'm fighting against some hierarchical view of leadership. Like what the heck are you serious?
Like, just because you've got a title and you're sitting on some top pain, half a million bucks a year for your salary doesn't mean I need to treat you any different to the person who's cleaning the goddamn bathroom, you know, and I respect that you've got experience and talent. I listen and respect that because that's fundamental to who we are in our culture is all respect.
You don't need a title, have respect. You just have respect period. So that, that definitely shaped, had a massive impact in who I've become in life and how I've surrounded myself with creating communities and building communities. And, and what I'm doing in the area of women is, you know, even five years ago, I started a women's group called team women, Australia, and it was all about story to.
And I called a team for the purpose of team. I D I didn't want this hierarchical view. Of course, it's taken me seven years to mobilize the damn thing, because I was stuck in the existing paradigm myself and say how we were trying to build it was inside that paradigm. And all it was it's like, why is this not working?
It was like, oh my God, why didn't you just stop doing it? I know, finally, here we are, you know, post pandemic and it's mobilizing, you know, we took the lid off and off the boundary itself and just went, you know, actually the whole purpose is team and collaboration and community and create, you know, it's not about having some organizational structure and I just want to, if I can implement it there in terms of how I see what's possible in the world, then I'll, I'll I'll know I've kind of achieved what I'm here to, which.
Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Kylee Stone. To discover the power of storytelling to ignite your passion, grow your influence and amplify the impact you have in business leadership and life, visit ThePerformanceCode.co.
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Now here's more of our interview with Kylee.
You also had the straightforward traditional career, and that certainly has impacted where you are today and you're thinking about structure, so tell us about that career.
Kylee: I've had such a great career. I feel so blessed, you know, I really do. And I feel blessed because I was in a time when media, in my opinion, feet here in Australia was really thriving.
So I got to work with some really just extraordinary, extraordinary people. And in fact, whenever I reflect on any of the jobs I've had, I like there's been people that have stuck with me my entire life since then, you know? So it was actually an accident that I landed in media. I did not want to leave home when it came to university.
And at the time I was living on the gold coast, which there was, there was no university on the gold coast, which meant for me, if I was going to go do a university, I would have had to travel away from. Of course I did not have enough. My prefrontal cortex wasn't developed enough to have enough emotional intelligence to know what was going on, so I didn't go beyond it.
Right. So I didn't go straight to university, but what it meant was I ended up going to, uh, you know, uh, did a full-time intensive college. On the gold coast in business and marketing and advertising. And, and I excelled, I mean, I'm, I'm very smart. And I, I taught, you know, I think I did three first-class honors, uh, in business management, sales management, and marketing itself.
And then over the college, they had different areas of industry worked within the unit within the college. And I had came through his class on, was over the entire college. So I so. And it was on the graduation evening that, you know, typical graduation, you have sponsors tables, etc. And as I was coming off the stage with the awards, the guy who was the marketing director at the time at the media company, pulled me over and gave him his business card and said, listen, I've got a job for you.
Just give me a call on Monday. And I was like, you beauty, you know, graduated college. The last thing you want to do is try and find a job. So that was, that was literally how much my study. I rocked up on his doorstep. No kidding. On the Monday morning, without an appointment, not knowing, I mean, I had no idea how, what was protocol and best way to do that.
And anyway, he was in meetings. So I sat there for half the time until he was ready to say me. And that was the beginning of my career. You know, he actually did not have a job to be honest. He was like, I just want this person in here and made a job for me. So of course, the first six months of my job, my career was born.
Boring on one aspect from a technical point of view, because I was in this marketing and promotions team and I had to pay stuff. In those days, newspapers, you had to paste up the content inside the paper. So that was part of my job, needless to say it was also fun because we had the very first Indy grand Prix here on the gold coast.
And we were, you know, we were the major sponsors. So, you know, we got to go to these big fabulous events and stuff like that. But I was invited by the head of the research, uh, team to come in and say easy. Do you know anything about computers? I had done a bit of. A bit of what do you call it? Uh, just data stuff in college.
Like nothing really learning how to talk. I was like, yeah, sure. I know how to use computers. He so great. He said, but because at the time his department with the exception of editorial that had one was the only department that had a computer. So he sees a great, can you come in and do you want to help me just do some data crunching?
And he asked me, yeah, sure. Next night, I'm home that night with the manuals, you know, the old Microsoft Excel, Microsoft, I would manually. Teaching myself how to use a camera, as I say, he's a computer, but I went back and, uh, anyway, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the data we had. Basically our job was to interpret the data, to help the sales teams, you know, sell and commercialize the business and help the editorial teams understand the readers of the paper and blah, blah, blah.
And that's what I did for the next 20 years. I, I just, I loved it. I, I loved the connection between the data and being able to convert that into. You know, sales presentations for the sales teams and when they would sell, they would sadly they'd get all the bonus. And I didn't, but I was paid pittance at that stage as a 19 year old, but, but that's, I just loved it.
I loved what I did and I just kept doing that. I did that for four years and he was a real supporter of mine and just, he was like, you got to get to Sydney, you know, get, get, take the next level. And I went for a job. I didn't get it initially because I didn't have a degree and I'd only just started doing a part time.
And, but three months later they rang me back. Oh, the person with the degree didn't work out. Can you take the job still? Yeah. So that got me the big. Um, I moved down to Sydney at the time and, uh, worked for, uh, you know, our, our major metropolitan papers here, the Australian and the Telegraph. And this is the main ones and that's kind of what set me off.
I just, then I, I, it, and it really was a methodical journey from there. It really was. I worked hard. I loved what I did. I got a promotion and then I got a pay rise. And then, you know, there was a bit of dysfunction in that team. I went and looked at our trade press and went, oh, I want to go work in the Marie Claire, you know, they're going to launch Marie Claire, I'd love to do that.
And I got the job and that's how it unfolded. It really was like, no kidding. It's like the traditional, here's a letter. Here's the steps you take to get to the top. Here's what you need to do that. And you work hard. You do a good job next year, you'll get a 2.5% pay increase or whatever the CPI rate is at the time.
And if you do that well, then you'll move up and then you'll move up and then you'll move up. And so I did that until 2006. Uh, and, uh, and in that time I've got to do some extraordinary work, launching some incredible brands and was then the marketing and strategy director for News Corp, which I know being global.
Everyone knows that. So it's easy to say that, but, uh, I did that for six years and I just loved it. You know, I really, really loved my job. I had a T I, you know, worked on the expansion of this team and. Transformed the way that we worked at just hi, my commitment to delivering great products was at the heart of everything.
And having people really enjoy what they do. I just really loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then of course, three kids had got to really suck on my God, how do I do this? So it was, that was, that was really the first turning point of like, oh my gosh, how do I get to, how do I get to still make a difference and be a leader?
Do what I really love now that I've got three kids in my kids. You know, this was when I, when I'd had the third one. So the first. I navigated, like I went back to work after three, you know, three months. Cause my child, God bless him would sleep 12 hours a night. So I'd be up during the day and I'm like, oh my God, I can't handle this.
Child's just to alert. I need to go back to. So I'm sleeping 12 hours and night. I feel really quite, except you're just running around crazy. I can't cope with this. I went back to work. So I went back to work two times, you know, with the first child and the second child went back to work. Full-time on both occasions and on both occasions, just, I think this is a story I think is really important for women to hear, because not all the stories about.
You know, I know we hear a lot of bad stories about women who return to work and they get treated badly and they, you know, like that. And sometimes I think we do do ourselves a disservice by not being able to hear stories that actually go really well because when we hear stories that go really well, we've got an access into what could I have done differently to, to do that.
And on both occasions, I got the biggest pay rise I've ever had in my career. And I got the biggest promotion I've ever head whilst I was on maternity leave. So it was an extraordinary time for me. And it wasn't until the day I had my third child and I went back to work that I, that it all fell apart. I was like, okay, three kids in three years, Colleen, who the hell, even kidding, like really, you can't keep doing this.
You're going to burn out. You're going to kill your family. You know, something's got to shift and that's when everything started to change. Really. So what happened. Uh, huh, I call it the, I call it the dirty dancing story. So I'm w I'm walking. Literally my third child is 10 months old Harrison, so it was 2010.
And, uh, I'm walking back into the office, thinking to myself, I am so desperate just to get a hot cup of coffee and be able to go to the toilet and piece, you know, three kids under three. And it was like, oh, I need to, I want to go. I want to go back part time. And I wanted to go back into my job because I just come up the back of three years of working on this major rebranding project and strategy, and is keen to get back into that project with the team.
So I'm walking into the office and literally as I'm walking through the corridor, I think to myself, You are crazy. You can't do this. You can't, you cannot go back know to a full-time job or a big job, or you've got three kids. And so I sat into the, uh, sat down with him and said, look, I want to come back.
And so I immediately decided for myself, I need to ask for part-time, that's the only way to do that. So I said, you know, can I part time he didn't want me in the job? He wanted somebody in that particular role full-time and he said, and I, and so I negotiated to split it. So I had marketing and strategy director and I said, well, what if I take the strategy?
Part of all that work and the guy that's doing my MetLife, you know, he can kick the operational aspect. So he agreed. So I came back and did three days a week just doing strategy and. Showing up. It was really grateful. I'm really grateful to just be able to get away from having three kids and really the stress of that coming into work.
And I was in an office and so right outside. So where are my, so I've been put into an office that was in the executive area and I don't know, you know, Certainly in Australia, you know, traditional corporate stolen environments, usually executive suites are either on a particular floor or certainly NewsCorp all over the world.
It's like this, right? Either it's the Taj Mahal, which is what we would call it that sits at the top. Or there's a floor, a dedicated floor. That's all for the executive suites and it's luxurious. Right? So I'm in the. Area. So when I was marketing director, I was in the marketing area with all the staff. And so now here I am in the executive area, in an office, outside the executive boardroom.
By myself and, you know, I should be grateful because I've got my own office and it's peaceful and it's quiet and blah, blah, blah. I can do my own thing. Yeah. Great. But then all of a sudden there was a day when my old executive team, so we're in the boardroom. They start walking in the boardroom and I'm sitting there on the outside.
There's a glass window on my side, outside the office. And I think to myself, what the heck. What the, this is not, this is not the picture I imagined. So, so, and I had this like all of a sudden for myself. Okay. So I've just climbed 20 years to get to this role now, just because I'm doing three days a week and I was actually in the executive team, but now I'm sitting here no longer part of the conversation or not, not only am I no longer part of the conversation, I don't have any staff anymore.
So I'm alone and. I don't have any accountability. I'm not accountable for a budget line. I'm just on the sideline. And I kid you not. That's like, you know, you know, that scene in dirty dancing where baby Houseman sitting in the corner, waiting for Patrick Swayze to, you know, he walks in the door, my Patrick Swayze didn't walk in the door, sadly.
I thought, no, this is not okay. I am not okay with this. And I just, at that moment decided I needed to do something about it. I I'm not, I just need to do something about it. So I decided to go back to true style, made tomb, to turn things around. Went and sorted out the fact that I had completed my undergrad degree, I decided at that then I had a conversation actually with one of the guys at work.
And I said, look, I said, what what's next for me? And honestly, what immediately Curt is the only thing I could do is I, well, if I'm going to compete here, I need to go get myself an MBA. That was immediately what I thought. But really that's what I thought. I thought, if you're going to compete there to get what you need to get you going to have an MBA.
So I got to the guy who was CFO at the time, I said, right, I'm going to have to. And he said, well, you do realize you don't need to given your experience. You actually don't need to complete your undergrad. You could actually make an application to have it authorized and you could go and do your postgrad.
Guess what I did. I submitted through to the university. I got my undergrad approved and they approved me to go into post-grad studies so that I could start doing an MBA and, or specializing in change management. Right. All the meanwhile still doing three days at work, still juggling the three children.
Oh. And let's just say added a coach in there into the mix as well, because it was just like, ah, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. Right. And so I just, everything. And so that was what I decided to do. I was like, you know what? I got to turn this around. This is I'm not going to get stuck because in marketing, one of the big problems in marketing is everybody in the company always thinks they know better as a marketer.
Somehow that's just one of those. It was a, everybody can do. And I thought I'm not going to get stuck with this future. So when I did make the decision to change, that's when I changed direction and went, okay, what is the future for me? If I looked out there somewhere in the future, and rather than looking at a step change, I was like, what could I imagine for myself?
And I, and that was when I got present to the opportunity of transformation and actually dealing more directly with people as opposed to customer. And that was why I chose to do the change management certification. And then of course I did two subjects of that. Very proud, got two high distinctions in both subjects, but was sitting down there while I was submitting my final paper.
It was a school holiday period when we were on holidays with the kids and on aided to submit this piece of work. And I, as I sat there doing it, the kids were at my fate and I, and I hadn't had another one of those moments. I looked down at them and I thought, is this what you want your life to be about?
Do you want your kids. To grow up thinking that you and you, that you're going to look back not having had these moments because you're too busy attending to what you technically think is getting ahead in your career. Let's just so at that point I quit. I quit the study. I said, this is not the right time.
I spoke to my boss at the time at work and they were doing a lot of transformation work and I made a request. I said, I can do that job. And I know I can do that job. I don't need to get a piece of paper to tell you I can do that job. And quite frankly, I've seen people doing that job who had the paper and they're actually not delivering results.
And so he pointed me the hate of change and strategy planning at the point at that time, that new school and was put on a project. What that adjust again? I just loved, I loved to work with the people and literally that was my last gig at new school, but I did that for a few years. And at the same time was, became so passionate about, you know, other women who were dealing with the same stuff.
And I remember walking in the office one particular day and I've got to the coffee shop, which is clearly the first step for any mother, get to the coffee first. And I'm standing in line with the coffee, having coffee. And there was a lady who was, I'd worked with maybe four or five years previously. She was standing in the queue behind me.
And you tapped me on the shoulder, says, Hey, don't worry. I say, most of the time when I get to the front of the coffee shop, I'm like, don't talk to me. I just want to not talk to anyone. Just, you know, just nod and say, yes, good. Except the turnaround. I saw who it was. And I just said saving really, but you really want to know and very pissed off.
Oh my God. Well, And I told her, I said, listen, I just really fed up with this whole, I've spent all these years to get where I've gotten. And I said, I just seriously just feel like my, somehow my intelligence just seems to be dissipated. You know, it's not relevant anymore. Or I should just be part time. And because I'm doing part-time, I'm not contributing at the level.
Even though I had this really great trainers role, there was a lot of the aspects of the role that it wasn't getting. And when she said me too, I was like, really. And I'll tell you at that point, I honestly did not see that it was more than just me and I want to aspects, I go, that's very insolent. Right.
But, but I didn't get at that point, the degree to which, because I hadn't, you know, there hadn't really been a huge awareness at that point around the issues of working women in senior leadership positions and the challenge. It was very early days. But when she said that, I said, that's awful. And I said to her, what are you doing?
She said, well, what came up. I was like, really? And that was, as you, you know, as I was saying, I had gone and started taking a number actions. I'd got myself into a UGA gig. And so I said that basically, people, listen, I'm happy to share with you, you know what I've done. And to kind of start to carve out a new future for yourself.
And we went and had lunch at the pub, sat down and started sharing with her about what I was doing. She said some amazing. And I said, oh, you know what I said, well, here's a few things to get you started. I've got to start it. And. Long story short, next minute, I'm running a weekly mentoring. Well, I call it a mentoring, but it was really a weekly chat with a group of women that went for, went up to 55 women who were all technically dealing with similar staff attempting to really carve out a future for themselves as a leader.
And it went outside of new school. So we had women in news Corp, but then women in news Corp had friends who were in other companies and it just kind of went from there. And then. That's what turned into team women, Australia. Like we just like, oh, we did this event. And then that went like that and it just kind of organically just took off.
Passionistas: What is leadership transformation?
Kylee: Leadership transformation is two things. To firstly acknowledge it. So transformation is a new view. So if you think about a butterfly that was a caterpillar, it's still the same animal. It's actually still the same, right? In many aspects, it comes from the same core.
What once was a caterpillar, has a new view, becomes this butterfly. So transformation is a process of seeing a new view that opens up a new world. And so leadership transformation is about acknowledging what we already know about leadership and our own view. So one of the things too, to have a transformation in the area of leadership, you’ve first got to get out of the way. What do I already know? And how do I already relate to leadership that's constraining myself.
So for me, it was really confronting, I have lived inside of this paradigm where leadership is something that you do and you progress to, and you get some academic qualifications along the way. And then when you get those qualifications, you get into a position. And once you've got that position and you're accountable for people, you're released. Right? So I first had to get that my behaviors and how I was showing up was conditional on that, that's design.
And so when I got that, I noticed that actually I have to separate myself from that perspective and to acknowledge that I'm not a leader because of my credentials. I'm not a leader because I have the title. I'm not only a leader if I get into a position where I have accountability of people. I'm not that, not that, not that, not that. Okay. Well, if I'm not that, then where does it exist? Does my leadership in being a leader exist and that's this whole new world.
That’s the leadership transformation. It is the transformed view of who I am and what's possible as a leader in the world. And that's the part where I say, you know, using the storytelling stuff, it's really by design. It's by design. Who you are as a leader is by design. And I've interviewed hundreds of people in various leadership roles, not just in a I'm a CEO or I'm a founder, or I've spoken to people who are in leadership development. And I've spoken to people who've exuberated leadership as an athlete. And I can tell you, you ask them what their definition of a leader is and not one single person says the same thing. So, leadership transformation is about the individual acknowledgement of what's been constraining the view, and then by design designing what that looks like for you.
And so the design piece then is the same as story, you know, when you craft a story about how that new future is very similar. To brand story. And you know, this kind of brought in all of my background in building brands and media and storytelling was there very simply two things at the beginning level.
That is what is the future I see for myself. What is that vision? We call it a vision. And then what is the purpose for that vision? What is my why for doing that? And when you bring those two things together. Quite simply, if there is a universal view, it’s someone who has a vision for a future and is out to fulfill on it with purpose and connects people with purpose. They're not connected on anything other than the fulfillment of a vision with purpose. And how you do that is up to you. That's by design because what you want in the future you're committed to is going to be very different to the person beside you.
But when we do that individually and we do it collectively, it is very powerful. It mobilizes, it really aligns people on what's really at the heart of who we are, which is our purpose. Each one of us has a purpose. People mistake often that my why is about my why? Well now actually that's, it's your why, but your why speaks about others.
So my purpose is to create meaningful connections. It's about what happens out there in the world. It's not what happens in here. So in that aspect, it's a leader in the sense that you, you are clearly here in the service of others. And yet your view of others is not independent of you. It includes you. So there is no you and me, there's just who I am and who I am is who you are. There's no me and you there's just you and me, me and you.
Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about the Unchartered Leaders Podcast, why you started that and what you hope people take away from it
Kylee: Starting a podcast was actually one of the, one of the most challenging things I've done actually to do the first one.
I was really nervous, but I, the thing that got me off the ground was a commitment to one thing in particular. And this is right. Goes right to the heart of my concern and my passion for creating a new paradigm of leadership and leadership transformation in particular. And I, and I, and I, because when I look at what happens in an organization, so in the current structure, in a hierarchy, what tends to happen, and I did this myself, you know, when things are not going well in a company, right.
We all blame the boss. We blame the company, you know, it's definitely the people sitting at the top who are not doing this, who are doing that and data day to day. Right. So except when things go really well, we don't say, oh, it's because of the box. Right. We go, oh, that's because of us. It's because of what we did.
We're so fabulous. Oh, give me a pay rise. Oh. But the bosses want to pay themselves more money. We have, but what about us? And it's because of the team and what we did. So what what's really, if we're really Frank, there is no freedom inside of it inside of bank. As someone who actually eats in that seat while that's all going on, that leader has no freedom to thrive and be successful.
That I, that is not okay for me. I'm like, that's not okay, because if we want to be a leader, what are we doing to our leaders? What, who, who are we that we are not embracing a leader's decision? You know? And so for me, the uncharted leader podcast was to, to achieve things. One, I want it to be able to tell the stories of those who are in leadership.
So people could get an insight into actually what it's really like. That they are human beings with a commitment to make a difference. They were you, they were at some point climbing someplace to get somewhere and are now being courageous enough to step into a role where they know everyone else is going to shoot them down.
Fundament. You know, now it happens more at Australia here. I think then what it does potentially in Australia, because in the, at least in the states, you know, you don't have this tall poppy thing where you want to, people are really great about being, being okay to be celebrated. Whereas here it's, it's less.
So I wanted a chance for people to, I want it to deal with that illusion called those people. You know, they've got beautiful stories to be told, so that's the first thing. And then the second thing is in sharing their stories. I wanted people who were aspiring leaders to get that being a leader is a great, is great.
It's a great opportunity. See, in, in, in the world that we live in today, being a leader is a bad idea. Being a leader is a really bad idea because it's, you, you're going to get shot down. And, you know, people are going to have a whole stack of opinions about you. It's exhausting. It's a burnout, it's hard work.
And so I'm like, yeah, Yana. What if being a leader was a really great idea because being a leader has more to do with how you choose to show up yourself and to operate from being accountable, rather than judge someone else. You know, we sit in our lounge rooms, complaining about our political leaders. We all do.
And yet we complain sitting on our couch, never having, ever set in a role as being a prime minister or a president ever. Uh, so we're very good at sitting back and judging others and, and, and, and I'm saying, no, the uncharted leader is someone who's saying, okay, I'm going to step back and take a look over here for me.
What is, what is it for me to express myself as a leader and to embrace that and to chart out a future that is completely uncharted. It is uncharted, no matter where you're at really, it's the way we think all of a sudden, because it's a pandemic it's uncertain. Are you kidding me? The world is, it's never been certain.
I mean, we live in like with some certainly, I'm sorry. You walk out the front door. You've got no clue about what's going to happen. You know, this is an uncharted life. Being a leader is uncharted and let's embrace that because actually everything that we need in order to be the best leader we can possibly be is all over here within us.
Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Kylee Stone. To discover the power of storytelling to a night, your passion grow your influence and amplify the impact you have in business leadership and life visit ThePerformanceCode.co.
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