Sunday 19 May 2013

Fame Fades But Class Lasts Forever


Striding up towards me with an entourage in tail is a guy most of us have heard of before, he goes by the name of Sir Richard Branson. I shake his hand, then give him a quick brief of what’s to come. “Mate we’ve got an hour, the Vice Chancellor will introduce us, I’ll then talk for about 15-20, then I’ll do a Q&A with you before we open it up to the crowd. The audience is a mixture of high school kids and uni students, and some other Uni peeps.” We’d cleared all of this with his staff before the event, but in 6 words the whole landscape changes as our session gets cut in half when Richard responds simply, “okay sounds like 30 minutes will suffice.” Righto Jacky Boy 30 minutes it is, roll with the punches, let’s cut the speech back and get this show on the road.

We walk in and there is a rock star style round of applause when the crowd sees Branson. We hit the stage and away we go (I was just hoping that I didn’t have any snot in my nose, that happens sometimes). To view the AIME TV 20 minute exclusive Q&A click through here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXq6uNnc2s).

Then as quick as it kicked off we were done, we wrapped up, snapped a quick pic together, he was whisked away and then the final play of the game was Richard published an amazingly flattering piece on his blog about the event (http://bit.ly/18tjbGK). That was that, and I had a plane to get onto to get to Perth, the show must roll on.

Kickin it with Sir Richo
The reaction of people to fame has always puzzled me. I find myself looking at people, respecting what they’ve done, often being inspired, but never do I drift into the land of adoration. I think in that moment, you suddenly lose a little bit inside of yourself that says, I can be as good as anyone out there.

And it’s also not fair on the people we cast our dream narratives around. For example a few people said that Richard was not that inspiring in the session… and I couldn’t help but think maybe the lad was a bit tired after 40 years of travelling the world telling his story to all and sundry, and then becoming a symbol that people attach themselves too.

If you want to be inspired by Richard Branson, look at what he does when the cameras aren’t on, look at the 15 year old who just started writing, and will now help lead civilisation into space. That’s the inspiration. Is he perfect? Nope. Are any of us? Nope. But all we can do is wake up each day and try and be that little bit better. We can also try to give those people we adore or look up to the same chances we wish for, the chance to be human, to be flawed, the chance to make mistakes, and the inspiration and support to get back up off the canvas.

At the end of the day, the cocktail for success is a mixture of timing, luck, and a serious amount of hard work, drive and desire, and most importantly a willingness to make mistakes, and to learn from them. I often say to our team, it’s only a mistake if you make it twice, and I love the way Rocky Balboa captures this when he says in a scene with his son outside a diner in Philadelphia, “kid, in life it’s not about how hard you can hit, its about how hard you can get hit and keep going.”

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve met a seemingly endless supply of classy people, I went to see our new team kick off the program in Western and South Australia, shared a stage with the global popstar of business, received funding from the Minister for Higher Education, Sharon Bird, who was really impressive. I’ve checked in for the launch of MayDate, a new online dating service trying to raise money for charity. This is a really interesting business model, and the founder Dan Joyce is a seriously talented dude who also set up RedRoom DVD (http://www.maydate.com/). What I love about Dan, and people like him that have impressed me so much over the last few weeks, has been their willingness to think creatively, to explore the full gamut of options life has on the menu, and to do it all with a serious dose of integrity, honesty, humbleness and determination.

Uni SA Vice Chancellor, David Lloyd, Sir Richard Branson and me :)













Like David Lloyd, the Irish Vice Chancellor of University of South Australia, who in his late 30s is the youngest Vice Chancellor in Australia, and as one of his 1st moves he’s bringing people from all over the world together for an online UniJam facilitated by Microsoft to take in all the feedback, ideas, and views of everyone connected with the Uni… (http://w3.unisa.edu.au/unijam/). Innovative, visionary, funny and also he does the little things right, like replying to every email I flicked him last week within the hour, including on weekends, and he also followed through on every offer to connect me with someone he made. Often it’s the little things that add up.

I also saw success in the form of Tomzarni Dann and Marlee Hutton, two Indigenous Uni students in Western Australia who are working for AIME as casual national presenters. After the Branson mayhem, I found myself in a room at Curtin University for our 1st ever mentor training for AIME… AIME in Western Australia… When did that happen!

 With the Curtin Crew for Mentor Training One!
I looked around and saw the shirts everywhere, the hoodies ready to be handed out, the great bunch of young people streaming through the door. And then watched as these uni students were captivated by the stories of Tomzarni and Marlee who were reaching out to bring these uni kids with them. I couldn’t help but smile. If we can do this in Perth, we can do this anywhere in the world. Two other team members over there connected with the Curtin Program, Reece Harley and Lauren Cramb are also seriously impressive operators and a great example of the future this country can have when young, smart, driven and balanced people commit to working and creating a world that’s better for everyone around them. A world that’s left in better shape after they leave it, then when they arrived.

Branson is in a class of his own in terms of what he’s done, but I think the lesson I’m learning is that fame fades and class lasts forever. The world will always have impressive individuals who rise to the top and become beacons of what we think we can be, the popularised images of Oprah, Obama and Mandela spring to mind. We can learn from these people, but their messages are spread so thinly across the world that when we look at their posters on our walls, we almost forget they are human. We can’t seem to be able to fathom where to find the ladder that will help us be able to climb our way to a point where we can even imagine the lives they live. So we search, we reach, we tweet, but in the Tomzarni’s, the David Lloyds, the Marly’s, Reece’s, Lauren’s, and Dan’s of the world, we have our heroes on our doorstep. We have greatness in front of us every day.

You just have to look around you. Search for those diamonds in the rough. Search for those people who cling pigheadedly to hope and steadfastly to their integrity. Search for the people who within an instant of meeting them you want to be around them. And know that it is these people that can help you shine the light on the person you want to be.

They can help you take off the face paint you feel obliged to adorn every time you leave the house so you can reach for that person you think your meant to be. Put positive, honest and driven people around you, and you will find that the greatness that you are reaching for, the fame that seems so tantalising, the magic aura that the Branson’s of the world deal in spades. All of this starts with you being yourself, and loving the chance you have to tell the world a story no one has ever heard. Because the only thing that you have that is unique in this world, in this whole universe, is your story.

So don’t try and replicate the Branson’s, don’t feel intimidated by the greats, be yourself, write your own story, and put people around you that love you for that, and then watch the magic unfold.





Wednesday 10 April 2013

Two of the Greats

Their two lives have made such an impact in shaping the way we think about our identity as Australians. One of them, Governor General Quentin Bryce, is one of the most recognisable Australian women in the world. Sharp, thoughtful, hard working, determined and oozing class Her Excellency is a force to be reckoned with.

The other, less well known, but arguably as impressive member of this odd couple is sitting at the table across from the Governor General. Hailing from Groote island in the Gulf of Carpenteria, Tony Wurramarrba, the Chairman of the Anindilyakwa Land Council, his road has been a long one to be sitting here.

Around these two are an eclectic mixture of people including the top dogs of Canadian life, their GG, Chief Minister, head of Business Council, the Australian and Canadian High Commissioners respectively  This is a serious place.

It's April 5, 2013, and we are sitting in Government House, Ottowa, Canada. Across the road from the Prime Minister's House, and snow is falling outside. It's the first time that Tony and I have seen snow.


Team led by GG arrives in Ottawa on Air Force Plane. Snow!

We mention this to one of the Canadian GG's staff during that traditionally odd and awkward pre drinks period before an event, and she sparked into life immediately "You haven't seen snow! Quick let's duck outside and teach you how to throw a snowball." I looked at Tony, and he gave me a little nod, and next minute, suits and all we throw our first ever snowballs at Government House in Canada.

Tony was this year awarded an Order of Australia, and was last year the Northern Terriory's local hero for his work playing hardball as the key negotiator with BHP and the Australian government over a deal with the mining company to see the Groote island community receive long term investment in infrastructure development, education, and health services. It's regarded as one of the most comprehensive agreements in Australian history in this space, and Tony was the lead negotiator on the piece.

Tony spots a mate on the way out of the National Museum of the American Indian, New York.

He has a wickedly dry sense of humour. When we go through the security check at JFK airport in New York, they make us take our shoes off, I roll my eyes at Tony who responds back with a quiet "Shirts too?" and then has a little chuckle.

The reason we are over here is we are travelling with the Governor General and an official Australian delegation to check out the Indigenous set up in Canada and the US. Other members of the delegation include Chris Fry, CEO of Indigenous Businesses Australia, Anne-Marie Roberts, a senior member of FAHCSIA in Australia, and Megan Davis who is the Director of the Indigenous Law Centre at UNSW and an expert member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples. A seriously diverse, and impressive bunch.

With Megan and Tony at Uni of British Columbia in front of our hectic Men in Black style ride.

The idea for the trip was all GG Bryce's work. Having spent the week with her in a trip that saw us, meet University and key Indigenous reps in Vancouver, then head over to Ottawa to kick it with their GG, Prime Minister and also check out Rideau high school (some cool kids there, over 70 different language groups in 1 school, and 30 Indigenous kids!), before we strapped ourselves in for destination Iqaluit, to meet with the Inuit people and see how they did their work there. Throughout the whole show I was truly inspired by the GG's utter professionalism, generosity and class. She's one of those people, who when she talks to you, you feel like you are the only person in the world.

She grew up in country Queensland and for her whole life has fought for equality, for women, for rural Australians, for Indigenous people, for us all. On this trip I could see her belief in our ability to reach for our potential, to strive to be better, and overcome the challenges that may come

This type of belief is woven permanently through the veins of both Tony and our Governor General. They live their lives to make others lives better.

Back in Ottawa at our dinner table, Tony Wurramarrba AO, rises to tell the table his story.

"Your Excellencies, I want to thank you for your welcome and pay my respect to the people whose land we meet on today..." Slowly, purposefully and thoughtfully Tony lays out his story with a rhythm that Shakespeare would have been proud of. Their is pindrop silence, this is presence personified.

"Your Excellencies, I knew we had to take this opportunity (to negotiate with the mining company) because we had to think of life after mining..." Don't we all. He continues his story of how he left the table 3 times because the offer was not good enough for his community long term, and with the hint of a grin he says."...I'm not easy to compromise with."

Sitting here, in the house of the Crown on the other side of the world, with all these people, and all this ridiculous protocol and formality, I couldn't help but think, "man, this guy couldn't be further from his comfort zone right now." And as I watch the leaders of this country captivated by his every word, images start flicking through my mind of some of the groundbreakers throughout history that have inspired me, the Mandela's, Mabo's, King's... people that themselves were willing to conquer the elements, new worlds, the people that met immovable objects head on with unstoppable force.

When Tony finished and sat down, I looked at him and was so humbled to be Aboriginal, so proud to be Australian, and even more determined to make sure our kids seize the opportunities that have arisen because of people like Tony. People who have been unfalteringly driven, pigheadedly hopeful, and unwilling to settle for anything but success. 

The Governor General Quentin Bryce, and Tony Wurramarrba AO have negotiated with subtlety, patience, class, vision and strength, and the result is a seat at the table for the people who follow in their footsteps.

We are often a pessimistic bunch back home, but after travelling through Canada and the US and seeing the similar challenges they face, I'm convinced that greatness is not far from reach for our country.

It will come from the Tony's, the Quentin's, it will come from you and from me, if we are willing to step up to the challenge to help shape a world where everyone gets a seat at the table.

Sunday 7 April 2013

The beginning

From Indonesia to Indigenous Australia

It’s 2010, in the tropical surf, off the coast of Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia, and a couple of young Australian men, waiting for a wave, are only a few steps away from being an instrumental part of shaping Australia’s future national identity, and it’s relationship with Indigenous Australia.

At 22, Drew Higgins has landed in Indonesia to take part in the AusAID youth program (AYAD), and is working on community economic development projects in Jakarta’s poorest urban suburbs, with trash pickers who collected rubbish and sold it for a living. Drew helped build a program that saw the profits raised from the trash pickers, be returned back into education for kids. He says humbly, “coming from the Northern Beaches in Sydney I reckon it’s fair to say I learnt pretty quickly how much of the world operated very differently to me. And I needed to learn to adapt to succeed.”

Sitting out the back of the surf with Drew, on a 6’6 ‘Soul Cruiser’ surfboard, was his 24 year old mate, Sam Refshauge. Sam had grown up in the inner west of Sydney, the son of former Labor Politician Andrew Refshauge, he’d lived a life with good opportunity as a youngster. Looking for a new challenge Sam also joined the AusAid program and found himself dropped in Jakarta, as the National Coach of the Indonesian Rugby Union team. “The boys had some serious speed, but I did have a couple of training sessions where I felt a bit like the coach of the Jamaican bobsled team in cool runnings,” says Sam.

Amongst their day jobs, they surfed, and travelled many of the islands of Indonesia, and with an opportunistic flavor, once their contracts in Jakarta had ended, they spotted the Commonwealth Games were on in India, and jumped on the chance to go.

Fast-forward and the boys are now sitting in the shade up against a wall of a stadium between the gymnastics and the cycling in Delhi, India. The sentimentalism of the games has triggered a conversation between Sam and Drew around Australia, what was going on at home, what they’d done in Indonesia, and everything in between.

In that same week, the boys had both received an email from a group in Australia called AIME – a mentoring program for Indigenous kids that used young Uni students like Sam and Drew were not long ago. The email was letting them know that there were jobs going with AIME in 2011. Amongst the mayhem of Delhi’s Commonwealth games, sitting in the dust by a stadium watching people pushing their limits to represent their countries the boys decided to return home to try and represent their country with AIME. 

Back in Sydney after, applying for their dream role, they both ended up in the final panel interview going head to head. “I wanted to know why these boys who could have walked into any corporate job and made a motsa wanted to be here. They both blew me away with their honesty and integrity, and I also got a strong sense of loyalty from them. So I gave them both jobs, primarily on their character,” said AIME CEO, Jack Manning Bancroft.

Two years on, the boys have grown rapidly with AIME. They have ridden the wave and stepped up to the opportunities that have arisen as AIME has boomed from 20 staff in 2010 in 3 states, to over 60 full time staff and 30 part time across Australia, in 2013.

At 27, Sam is now the National Director of Program Operations, and oversees the implementation and delivery of the AIME program across 16 University locations, reaching over 40 different communities, providing the program to 200 schools, in 5 states, and engaging between 2000-3000 Indigenous high school kids, and 1500 University student volunteer mentors this year.

“I’m back home now, and the learning curve has been steep. But I’m just lucky to have the chance to do something special for the country. It’s great to be part of a new generation of young people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous stepping up to help us build an Australia we can be proud of”, said Sam.

And with a huge level of responsibility in terms of staff to manage, and the delivery of this program in his hands, how is Sam handling the pressure? “Loving it, but I must admit by Friday 6pm I think I now feel a little bit like one of those Jamaican bobsledders. I might not know what I’m doing all the time but I’ll keep pushing forward, and keep pushing myself to improve and be the best I can be. And fingers crossed, that gold is just around the corner.”

At 26, Drew is now working as the Creative Operations Director. If you’ve ever seen any of the AIME teams films or their online work, you’ll be amazed at the quality. And its done on a shoestring, with $0 marketing budget, Drew helps pull the operational levers between the creative mayhem that flows in the heads of the CEO Jack, the Creative Consultant Dave Kaldor, the Canadian film magician Matt Dwyer, Program Development coordinator Jake Trindorfer and web designer Jack Kirby-Cook.

“They are a crazy crew. I’ve been amazed by the passion and ideas that are generated within AIME. Everyone is so energized and inspired, it’s infectious, and we try and pull that all together into content for either the educational program, or our other mediums like YouTube, Facebook, or TV.

Sometimes I pinch myself a little and look around and how much ball we are playing. Jack keeps saying we are going to take this around the world and be one of the best businesses in the country, up there with Google, and it’s this year in particular that I’ve looked around and realized that he might be right. AIME’s proven to me the ability that anyone has to be able to step up and make a difference if they are focused, they have a plan, stay positive, and work ridiculously hard, then anything really is possible. I’m glad I’ll get to tell my kids that I was on the wave that helped end Indigenous inequality in Australia forever.”

AIME is currently recruiting University mentors for 2013, and is about to launch a new membership program.  Head to their website to get on the wave with Sam, Drew and the AIME crew.