SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to What Would Amber Do with your host, Amber Howard. Each week, Amber dances in conversation with inspirational leaders how to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now, here is your host.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? It is my pleasure today to be speaking with and have on the show Mick Hayes. Mick is a public speaker, workshop facilitator, in his own right, a a podcast host, and he is the founder of 17x, who seeks to connect with value-aligned brands and people to make a purposeful impact in the world. Mick's commitment is to engage the current generation to positively impact the world for themselves and for future generations to come. Mick, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show this afternoon with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Thank you, Amber. I'm really excited to have a chat with you today.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah, me too. Especially because, you know, a big part of what you're up to and talking about in the world is the sustainable, you know, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which I have personally declared will be completed by my 50th birthday. So we've got five and a half years. So the more people I meet on my journey, like yourself, I'm like, oh yes, they're coming to me. I'm finding all of the people who I can partner with. So because I have no idea how to do this, by the way, but I figure it's an audacious goal. And, you know, but if no one ever says it, then it's never gonna happen, right? So I'm gonna say it and then we're gonna find the people that we need to in order to actually be able to complete those goals in five and a half years, which I think is pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You've shortened the you've shortened the due date, Amber. Now you've made it the 20, what's that, the 2027 agenda?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Amber's 27, 8, 2027. We were gonna pull it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Well, why not? Right. I mean, you play, you win the games you play. And so why not play that game? It's really great, Mick. Why I'd love to hear a little bit about where did this all come to be for you, right? I mean, I imagine, and I think we, you know, we talked before you were kind of living a bit of a normal life or whatever people consider to be a normal life, and then all of a sudden you started following a different path. So, you know, I'd love to hear about that journey for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, I think um my I don't know if I had an I didn't really have an aha moment, but I guess the transition away from just being self-involved and trying to do my own thing, um uh, you know, not overly self-involved, but things like, hey, let's get a job, let's make money, let's try and, you know, do stuff, have adventures, travel the world, did all that kind of stuff in my 20s, very much around what is what's Mick up to and how can Mick do more of fun stuff and have more adventure. And but I I think when I think back and and because I I generally ask a lot of our guests on the 17X podcast a similar thing and go kind of digging in for where's the aha moment. And when I think about myself, um, is it was definitely a combination of a few things over over a few years, I would say, but then also a bit of right place, right time with the right people. Um, so I I certainly attribute becoming a dad a little bit, you know, of that for me. Um, because as a young guy, you know, I had um Cohen when I was 30. Um and I spent my entire 20s surfing and partying and traveling and just having this adventurous lifestyle, and and with my wife and half of that. Um, but then all of a sudden, here's this human that I have to slow down and be accountable for. And I think as a young guy, it certainly um grows you up pretty quick because all of a sudden, yeah, it's not just about you and the things that you want to do. You're you've got to, there's there's something bigger than you that you're now responsible for, right? So I think that plays a part. Um, Renee, my wife, had a a battle with cancer. Um, she's okay. She she smashed it. Um, what a legend. Uh when the boys are really young. So that again also I think makes you kind of think about well, do I, you know, do I really want to just go to work and pay bills? Like maybe there's some bigger things out there that we can chase. Um, so I think all that played a part. And then, yeah, the right place, right time stuff, transitioning through some some work into working for myself and then being surrounded by some interesting people that were already in the purpose space or social enterprise space or philanthropic space, a bunch of different areas. Um, and yeah, and I think just kind of having those people as maybe uh subliminal guides to when you're starting to look for new things to do, and you go, Well, what's happening over here? And I I credit people like Paul Dunn from from B1G1, um, who was uh becoming a new friend of mine. Um, and he was very much transitioning some of the B1G1 messaging to incorporate the global goals. And um, yeah, and uh learn a bit about reciprocity at the time. And so yeah, I think as this combination of life experience and being around the right people, asking a few interesting questions and then going, okay, well, if I'm gonna work for myself and do my own thing, maybe I should try and create some good while I'm doing that, right? And yeah, so that's kind of here I am uh having a crack, as we say in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

I uh I love that, you know. I'm in the middle of writing a book called Yard Sticks, which is well, that's the working title. It's all about the measures for success, right? And I think for many people, like that standard path that we take, right? That you know, you go to school and then you go to college or university, or you know, get some higher education and then you, you know, like get a job and have a family. And like for me, it's empowering people to be able to kind of interrupt that for themselves and say, like, what do I want? And and I think you answer that question differently at different times, like probably in your 20s, and rightly so, like you wanted a lot of adventure in doing those things, but then you also wanted a child. And when you had a child, it, you know, I I definitely can um relate from my own experience, becoming a parent kind of shifts your focus, right? Or enlargens your focus, which is what I heard and what you were sharing. And I think that's that's very powerful. So, you know, that's one of my big commitments is that people get to live a creative life based on what they want, and that they get that that's a journey, like what you want today, what I want today, maybe different in five years or 10 years, likely will be. Um, but people have the skills and the tools to be able to keep to keep expanding that and and opening that conversation up. And the other thing I really heard, which uh I really um resonate with is the kind of people that started showing up in your life as you started, like as your your focus shifted and expanded, then you start attracting people to you, I think, that are, you know, the next people that you need for your journey. And it sounds like you had a number of really amazing people show up in your life that gave you somewhere to look differently than you had been.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, absolutely. I think all I um a little bit, I'm a little bit less about the manifestation inside of all that, and and they show up because I was actually looking. I I just I think they were there, but I just started to see them a little bit more directly and different. So um that that whole thing about you know, you buy a red car and all of a sudden you start seeing red cars everywhere. It's like a reticular activation, I think it's called. Yes. Um, so really about I think for me, that's about having the agency inside yourself to open up that peripheral vision, right? So when you particularly when you're in your own wheelhouse and trying to achieve things that are very insular, you tend to be a bit more, in my experience at least, a bit more myopic and kind of one track, right? Whereas when you start asking questions around, well, how can I, yeah, how can I sell my widget or do my thing, that actually then creates all these other cool outcomes in the world. It certainly opens up your peripheral and makes you look at, I think, people, business, opportunity, community around you in perhaps a different way and through a different lens. Um, and certainly, you know, there's probably some attraction there and attracting the people that you want to work with in the world, absolutely. But then also I just think that that when you start to shift your focus away from what can I do and what can we do, um, you know, yes, some people might look into attraction, but I think it's very much also around it's a permission-based thing that you're giving yourself the agency and permission to actually open those doors that you wouldn't do because there may not be a guaranteed success on the other side of that in terms of am I actually going to get something for me out of this? Versus, well, if I actually help myself create impact for others and maybe a partnership out of this, then I'll eventually win anyway. Um, and that'll circle back, right? So I love the idea of permission-based leadership and permission-based um planning and strategic kind of thinking around not just around what are the goals that I want to achieve, but giving yourself the freedom to maybe think a little bit further outside the box and do things that don't necessarily sit inside business 101. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah, it really does. And you you mentioned something when you were talking earlier about the kinds of goals or things that you were looking to create, you know, expanding or becoming bigger. We did this uh amazing exercise this week with our team that we're helping them create their goals for 2023. And a lot of them have never done this kind of goal setting before. And and we talked about like different types of goals, like, you know, a lot of people set goals that they've already accomplished, which is not a problem, but there's just no growth in that, right? Like, and the for me, the point of having goals is to grow as a human being. And and so we talked about like setting really big goals, like goals that you don't even know how to accomplish, the kind of goals that make you want to throw up a little bit, right? Because it's like, I how can I like that mix of excitement and fear, right? It's like, can I actually say that I want that? And and at one point in the conversation, they were so like just sweet. And one of them, like, what if the goal's too big? I'm like, then that's the goal I want you to write on the paper. Like I want you, I want you to pick goals that are too big because then you get to create new skills and knowledge and and partnerships in order to be able to fulfill on them. So I think that's part of it, you know, back to the conversation about declaring the completion of the 20, the the SDGs by my 50th birthday. It's like that is a goal I have no clue how to accomplish from what I said today. Like I absolutely, I mean, in a world where I believe anything's possible, I know it's possible, but I actually have no idea what it would take and what needs to get created and what people would need to be at the table and how to facilitate that. But it for me, that's a goal that causes me to want to jump out of bed every day and like play that game, right? And I think that's uh a big part of it. And and we're not gonna get there without partnership, which is why I think this, you know, what you're up to at 17X, and I'd love to hear a little bit more about that, is so vitally important because it's about creating, you know, the community and partnership and collaboration and bringing people together and helping them connect. And um, that's fun a hundred percent, in my view, what's required in order to be able to even start the conversation really about how do we move forward and actually achieve these goals.

unknown 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

And I like when you circling back to what you're saying there about putting big goals on paper that, oh shit, what if I can't achieve it? Or what if I don't even know how to do that? Or, you know, circling into the things like we don't you don't know what you don't know, right? Yeah, is remove like removing ego from the whole thing that, oh, what if I fail? Yeah, well, so what if you fail? What are you gonna learn inside that failure? Like if someone calls you a failure that you don't know, or they, you know, whatever, if your ego gets damaged, you know, maybe just park that a little bit and actually go inside the journey. And one of our speakers in Brisbane, uh, sorry, not Brisbane, it was in Perth, run a sustainable beer company. And one of the comments that he made was don't let great get in the way of good. And I thought that was really cool. And that is particularly in this purpose space, like don't get solving so SCD number one, right? No poverty. That's a big freaking goal, and that's hard. That's gonna be really hard, and there's no doubt about it. It's complex, it's huge, it's massive, and it's scary. And is it a smart goal? Is it realistic? Shit, I don't know. But if we got 30% of the way there by 2030, that's a hell of a lot better than where we were 10 years ago. So it may not be complete, but it's uh, you know, and what lessons and what impacts and what lives were created and what partnerships came out of it, and and what is the ripple effect that came out of even getting 30% of the way there, uh, and removing that fear of failure away from it all. And I see that a lot within, again, whatever label you want to give it, the purpose space impact social enterprises there's less ego involved in it. And it's more about well, these are the things that we want to try and achieve, and we're gonna do what we can to get there. And the lessons that we learn along the way inside the partnerships and the collaboration will be almost as important as achieving the outcome when we get there. Um yeah, it I just it's such a complex, I think a positively complex environment to be around. Uh, it's super confusing sometimes. And the people doing like there's some people doing some outrageous things that I my brain just can't keep up with. But listening to what's you know what's happening along the way for them to achieve what they're trying to do is inspiring enough to make me want to, you know, join the party. But I don't care if I fail, right? If I fail, then whatever. I'll learn some lessons along the way and I'll try something new.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah, I always love Edison on this one, right? 10,000 times the man made a light bulb. I I just like to me, yeah, whenever I'm having a moment, right? It's like, God, how many times, you know, in like 1299 at 5,644, like like how many times on that journey? And and to me, it's like how deep his commitment and desire had must have been in order to persist in the face of like most human beings would not have and there and Edison's one example. There's heaps and tons of examples of people who fusion thing that just came out, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

It literally, I think in the last 24 hours, there's this been an experiment in the states where uh it's nuclear fusion, not fission, but fusion. So combining atoms, not separating them. Um, and they finally managed to get more energy out than they were putting in. And that I listening to Dr. Carl today, one of Australia's biggest science buffs, it took them 60 years and tens of billions of dollars to be able to get this little thing happening where they had enough energy to boil a uh kettle for 20 minutes. So, you know, he'd say, well, on one side of the coin, you could say that that just costs, you know, boiling that kettle just costs 60 years and about a billion dollars. Like, what's the point? Versus the other side of it is obviously yeah, I mean, they could have given up billions and dollars ago and many scientists' careers ago, but hey, groundbreaking things happen over pain, sacrifice, failure, and little lessons along the way, and everything else in between.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, and I think I love what you said about removing the ego from it because it really is, you know, like that that fear of failure at the level of self, like looking at it as a failure of self versus a failure in effectiveness or performance, or like I just didn't have the right knowledge, or I didn't take the right actions, or you know, and I've learned and I now I know what else I could do differently. Like um that I think that's the that's what kills, you know, most creations before they even get started, right? Or or that there's this great book called The Energy of Money by Maria Namath, and she talks about um like the challenge that we have. She calls it trouble at the border between the subconscious mind, like the conscious mind and energy when it's in thought form and how light and fluffy and airy it is. And then when you try to take that idea and turn it into physical reality, you you kind of reach what she calls trouble at the border, right? Things take longer than you thought they were gonna be your doubts. All of this stuff shows up in that transition from you know, from idea into to create, you know, creating into reality. And if we know that, if we know that there's going to be trouble at the border, then we can anticipate it and plan for it and and then you know, not get impacted by it in the same way as if we don't understand that. So I think that's really powerful thought as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, absolutely. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

So in terms of what 17x is doing and the work that you're doing at 17x, you know, share a little, could you share a little bit about, you know, what are you up to and what's what's coming in the new year? And I know from another conversation we've had, you've got some pretty exciting things on the roadmap for 2023. And in how do you see the work that you're doing at 17x as impacting the larger conversation around the SDGs?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah, cool. Thank you. Um, so I guess look for listeners in a nutshell, 17x is an event series that we travel around Australia uh and soon to be internationally, hopefully, fingers crossed. But uh at the moment we are Australian-based. Uh, we hit all the major capital cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide. Uh, and we run a, I guess, a TEDx style speaking event, if you like, where we get speakers, um, but we theme it all around the UN sustainable development goals. So we find operators that are either social enterprise founders doing their own thing on their own as a single operator, right up through to ESG world, you know, in the corporate space, research, academia, everyone else in between, right? And the whole premise is to engage the business community to take meaningful action with the global goals. And I think sitting in behind that is, I guess, our mission or my kind of mission is to redefine what business actually is here to do. Yeah. If you look up the definition of business in any dictionary, it talks about things like a person's occupation or their job. Um, and it's very kind of linear and and it's finite, right? You you have a thing and you sell it and you make money, and that's kind of it. Um, whereas uh one of my good friends, Eli Harold from Valhalla, uh, who's um based in EgyTech, and something that he talked about once that was just such a light bulb for me was around how businesses need to be a vehicle to solve human-centered and creative problems. And I thought that was such a beautiful way to redefine business where they're less about a transaction and more about, and because they are, they literally are. Businesses are like the best tool for solving problems uh for innovating and for creating and connecting humans to create solutions together, right? So, how do we redefine what business is here to do? And that's that's I guess the the little mission that sits in behind all that. But the global goals, obviously, they're such a great framework. They they aren't the be-all and end all of how we fix things, and then they don't necessarily have to be um, you know, have to be the only way that we can create impact and purpose. But I think as in terms of a framework to help people get started and understand, all right, well, I'm running a business, it does need to look what is our responsibility in in you know, either the the world or or society or planet and and the people that we work with, and how do we start? And the 17 goals are just such a relatable, easy way for people to get started and then break down and find some KPIs that they can work to. Um, and yeah, and so look, um, 17X has just been this great vehicle for me to meet some really amazing people um that wow me every day. And every time I, you know, I was on the had a coffee today with a with a crew from an ag tech company that just blew my mind. I kind of and literally, Amber, at least twice, if not more times a month, I want to quit my job and go and work for someone. I'm like, I meet someone, I say, Hey, I just want to stop what I'm doing, come work for you for two years, just so I can learn and I can just be a part of what you do. Um, it's just such an inspiring space to be around. So, look, and yeah, look, the evolution of it all is that we started out as an events company just as a way to bring people together to talk about this stuff. Um, but we are very fast turning into like this kind of community of or an ecosystem of like-minded leaders and and founders and operators that that want to collaborate and collaboration over competition every day of the week. Um, and yeah, our events are slowly growing and our community is is getting bigger and bigger, and we get to meet and chat with people like you and and aid hub and everyone else. And um, next year's just so exciting. There's so much more stuff to happen. So, yeah, super pumped, but ready for a little bit of a a break in the calendar as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

It is coming to that time of the year for sure. We had a our last all-staff meeting of the year today, so you can feel things, people kind of the energy shifting a little bit, which I think is good because an opportunity to kind of reflect. And I like to clear and cut the year, so you know, just reflect on the year. But uh, you know, I really, and this is part of the reason why I'm so excited for this conversation with you and just to have met you, Mick, and and who knows what the future brings. But I think, you know, for me, this conversation or collaboration and partnership actually started it during COVID. So, you know, COVID was happening at the beginning, and then there was the death of George George Floyd. And I had reached out to a number of people on my networks to just say, you know, what can I do as an ally? Like, how can I actually be a part of this conversation in a way that like doesn't attract but adds something like, and it just seemed like every other person I talked to was telling me about some new program or some new directory or some new course at a university, a peace university, you know, a whole university around peace studies in Costa Rica and like all of these. And I just reflected more and more and then, you know, there's like 10 plus not-for-profits and NGOs in the world that are all essentially, and like that's not even counting, community projects and and local community gardens and, you know, church groups and, you know, on and on and on and on of all of these people who are really committed to having a world that works and and essentially solving these 17 goals, because I think a lot of people's efforts really in some way can, you know, can get track to one of the SDGs. And when I was looking back at history and things that like when you look at social movements that have really been impactful, you know, the civil rights movement, you know, Mahatma Gandhi in India, Mother Teresa, these movements had a focal point. And it wasn't that Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Dr. Martin Luther King did everything to cause the civil rights movement, but he was a point at which other people's energy converged around. And so for me, when I looked at what's happening globally around the sustainable development goals and just really like people's commitment to you know all of these different challenges that we deal with as a human race, I see that there's a missing there in terms of a focal point. You know, a lot of people don't even know what the United Nations sustainable development goals are, right? And people may talk about the challenges that the SDGs represent, but there's really nowhere that people can bring bring their energy together and converge their energy. And what I do see a lot of is duplication of effort, right? Like that's 10 plus million marketing campaigns and boards of directors and you know like strategic plans and volunteer databases, right? So like and every every day, every other day someone or every day people are kind of I don't want to use the word awakening but you know some of the person's discovering their purpose and they're like oh how am I going to make a difference in the world and then they're going to go create their own NGO or you know not-for-profit organization. And and because of some of the not like some of the um just the competition that happens in these spaces there's not a lot of collaboration even between these organizations that are out to save the same goals because they're fighting for the same funding sources a lot of the time. So they don't share ideas, right? So to me, all of that is to kind of point to why I think what you're doing is so important. And you know the more people we can start the more we can start to bring these groups of people into the same places where they can speak to each other and understand that there are other people out there doing similar work or the same work even the more we can um start to converge that energy and and and have a a bigger impact faster.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah absolutely um you know I I think uh there is such an opportunity knowledge transfer right now there's like you say there's uh if you take the 17 goals for instance right there's 17 of them you don't have to try and fix 17 of them you don't have to try and embed 17 goals into your business um to be able to say hey yep we're you know we're driving the purpose through our company just pick one and there may not even be on those 17 there may be something else that you're really passionate about and and if you're passionate about magpies great fix the magpie problem um whatever it is that that is you know aligning to a greater good and that is you know ideally paving the way for some positive impact for either people or planet then you'll find other people that are believe and and you know that uh that share the same commitment and the opportunity to share in that knowledge and share in the experience and you know we were talking about fear of failure earlier on right and you you hear a lot of people talk about find your tribe you know I think the whole idea about finding your tribe is that you can fail safely and you can and you can succeed loudly right you can get the cheers when you need them and if you fail you've got a safety net of people around you there to help pick up the pieces if you need to. And I think that's that's really important because A, none of us have the answer to ourselves right we've been saying it for years, you know two heads are better than one and and so on. And finding people that that believe what you believe also I think empowers you to ask yourself the right questions around am I actually contributing in the right way. And you may find an innovation that someone else is doing that's far beyond what you're up to and the opportunity to then yeah remove the ego and go, well may maybe we should be partnering and I should be just helping and working with you. And like you say removing the duplication. I think it's hugely powerful and and we are in the age of information right now and I think there's a lot of damage happening from things like social media that needs to be corrected through partnerships and connection and I think personal and and direct connection I feel like we've gone a little bit full circle where we went away from being personal we went digital and now we've all had enough of digital and we need to get back to knowing each other again. We need to get direct and work together again.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

I always said that social media is like MSG for relationships, right? Like you can spend all day on social media but then you're left at the end of the day you still you're still hungry right because there is like and I it doesn't have to be in person. Like I feel like through and I I don't know if you have this experience on your podcast as well like when I have these kinds of conversations like you and I are having today there's like a a a deep level of connection and and you know sharing of minds and you don't agree but yeah this is still a connection this isn't just because we're zooming doesn't mean yeah I mean like um so you know we kind of went to automation mode there for a little while and you know we're setting up ad funnels and we're working out ways to attract new customers and and and build our brands through all these digital means where it's now it's a little bit less transactional about the brand connection.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

I think it's we're circling back to people connection again. If you think about like sales models and and how we can kind of connect businesses together. And that I think that's where 17X is kind of finding its feed is we really do sit inside that partnerships for the goals and it's not just oh yeah hey we're just here to be partners for the goals what we really actually can play our our actual piece and what you know when I ask myself what is our actual impact what is it that we're actually here to do that's going to make a meaningful difference in the world I don't have an innovation brain I don't have an engineering brain I don't have a product innovation bring around with some kind of thing that's going to solve one of those goals. What I can work on and what we are doing with 17X is actually bringing like more together with intention of forming partnerships to collaborate. So we we really are sitting in that that almost you know dating app kind of thing for bringing companies together that believe the same thing and that they actually and I don't necessarily want to be involved in it. I just want to be able to just yeah play introduction and and we just create partnership opportunity I guess is probably a better way to put it um and yeah just put all the ingredients in the pot and then step out of the way and just see what happens. I think that's and it's a fascinating thing to watch right is you know you we might put a room full of SMEs and corporates together with that may never have even been in each other's space forever. And we put a couple of speakers on the stage that can really inspire their thinking and and lead their their own thoughts around okay well maybe we should be doing similar things. And then all of a sudden what that creates in the I hate the word networking but say the connecting piece into the event um is hugely powerful. And now we're working on how do we actually authentically bring our community together outside of our events in 2023 that fosters more of that connection and innovation and and yeah I hate it but I hate the word but networking and or I think ecosystem is the word I like better. How do we create this ecosystem of like minded people that are ready to do to collaborate with one another that wouldn't all necessarily always see each other.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Well I think it's like so a couple of things that I think are really important in what you're saying. And one I mean I it's a natural development to me where of this you start bringing people together and connecting them and then the next thing is well how do you maintain and develop and deepen that connection right because human beings have a it's like we remember and forget things all the time. It's kind of part of what it is to be a human being right so you may show up at an event and you meet someone and it's like oh great and there's a spark and but if there's not a container or space or whatever you want to call it your I like the word ecosystem for these people to keep coming back and looking and actually you know which is my second point is inquiring together. Because I really think the most important to me in inquiry is what makes life delicious and juicy and wonderful. Like the finding the answers I think if we really were honest with ourselves as human beings, finding the answers is fairly boring and has a very short shelf life. Once you have the answer to something it's like so what? But it's that space of inquiry and like one of my my mentors once said you know the quality of your life is given by the quality of the questions that you ask. And so like am I asking quality questions? And this is why other people are so important because I'm only ever going to ask the questions given by my view of the world and it's limited. It's not the entire you know it's not everything that's available or possible. It's just my little slice of it. And so the more people I'm getting into space with people that can have me create new new questions and new conversations. And this is a big part like I said I just spent the weekend with my my partner Peter we're in this year-long course called partnership exploration and we were talking about like in you pick 20 people in your life and you dive deep over the year into those relationships and those partners and how can you explore and expand partnership in the with those people. And we had a whole like part of the training this weekend was on different categories of conversations. So like you know category one things that we typically say to each other and the conversations that we normally have category two conversations that we things we're locked out of talking about we can't talk about or we don't talk about and then this category three they introduced kind of this category three of conversations are like things no one's ever said before or things we've never said in our relationship. What could we say in our partnership, our relationship that's a hundred percent new neither of us has ever said it before and I think that's a big part of what your community that you're building and creating provides is a space for inquiry, a space for people to collaborate and come together, but also this space for people to start saying something new because in it's my view that unless we actually start saying something new, we're just going to keep getting more of what we already have. And and so and this is a big part of the whole conversation around the SDGs that I'm it's I'm really committed to is let's talk about what it is that we want because you know I do believe it's been my experience that we get what we speak about and think about. So how can we talk about you know creating the the transformation changes that we want in the world in a way that actually gets us the intended outcome and not you know like you know my favorite the Americans let's create a war on drugs. What's the fastest way to get more drugs right create a war on drugs like that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

I love it. Yeah I mean you know there's a lot of deep thought inside what you're saying there and I I think again it goes for me it goes back to that agency of giving yourself permission to be wrong and to fail and and not to have to know everything or have all the answers especially for us boys far out get out of our own way and get out of everybody else's way too um but you know is just removing that ego and being okay and I like I learned this so um an example like I think the parallel example for me is so so mental health right people that know me know that I'm a facilitator for a mental health charity here in Australia called Livin. I'm actually wearing one of those shirts you can see it Living and uh the whole thing is around uh stigma reduction right how do we normalize the conversation around mental health they run a program um so I'm a facilitator for their program it's their IP a lot of people tend to think they go wow your living thing's going really well I'm like it's not mine it's a charity that I work for um it's like a low bono thing and I absolutely love it right and their whole message is it ain't weak to speak that's the that's the tagline and um they they look for facilitators that can help the crowd and we spend a lot of time standing in front of um high school students um and part of the I guess the the piece around being a facilitator is lived experience right now I grew up with a psychologist as a dad and a and a nurse as a mom and my sister's a psychologist and I nearly went and did sports psych but then I thought my poor mum can't have three in the family so I'll go do something else. So the the I think the health and mental health space has always kind of been an open door in our you know life. But I had a panic attack right in my it was just after Renee got sick. So my early 30s and I thought I was having a heart attack and I rang up my dad and I'm like hey I think I'm having a heart attack he's like no dude you're having a panic attack I said no dad I'm having a heart attack I don't have panic attacks he said no no no you're having a panic attack I said no no no anyway so you get the gist I was refusing to listen to everyone else that's saying no you and I went and got all the tests. I got my my heart checked my brain checked I got everything checked and then eventually I spoke to a psych and then went no yeah you haven't panic attacks and I and it was from some pretty serious shit going down right from having Renee get sick when we had a baby and stress and all that kind of stuff. Um and uh I had a a semi kind of life threatening experience when we rolled a boat out at sea and kind of had to get rescued and all that kind of things when Renee was pregnant. So all these things led up to me having a panic attack right and it it it took me a little while to be able to talk to people about that because you know the whole stigma around oh mental health I don't want to talk about that am I going to be weak and can I still call myself as successful you know at the time you know I've and I still do I was working in the kind of coaching space right how can I coach people on their performance when I'm having panic attacks and you start to kind of get in that stigma space right but going through the whole thing and then working with the ment this this crew uh living and whatnot I now tell that story to a whole bunch of strangers every you know in a much more detailed way every month and I'm talking thousands of people all right um every month I'll I'll be in front of a couple of hundred students at a at a at a time and I think in like and the the reason I tell that is that the parallel between failure or say the stigma that sits around things like mental health the same stigma sits around things like entrepreneurship or failing at business or not making enough money or being wrong having a go at something and it doesn't work out. What is my mum going to say? What are my friends going to say like you know and again going back into some of the stuff you were just talking about around partnerships and and and what what are we saying to each other what can we say to each other what are we not saying to each other and really giving ourselves permission to sit inside the vulnerability of not having to have all the answers and not having to be what does success look like or what does what does right look like even like what does correct look like and you and I were talking the other day and I'm very aware that I'm a white 40 year old male that grew up in Australia right I'm like one of the luckiest people on earth and I'm very aware of that. And I don't have to think about you know and my children don't have to grow up thinking you know am I going to get you know attacked because of my skin color or do I you know they don't they don't have that fear in them. And so they're not questioning even their position in society, right? And imagine putting that level on top of things. And we go back to things like the SCDs around reduced inequalities you know um and equality across the board in terms of you know gender and the whole um identity piece. I just think this this whole thing around particularly us blokes and especially us white blokes is the vulnerability of not having to have all the answers and sitting in the okay of that plays a big part in the leadership that we can create inside of partnerships by in a lot of ways stepping the hell out of the way and engaging and empowering the people around us to have these really open conversations. I think there's there's just for me there's a there's so many parallels in inside of your own personal journey and what you can use from that to bring to the partnerships that you create in the world in a professional sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah I love everything you've said and and you know the the mental health conversation is particularly close to my heart both of uh you know I come from a family who's dealt with a lot extensive childhood trauma both of my parents and um yeah and seeing the impact of that on their lives and then my lives and then like even the generations kind of a 10-year gap between my kids, right? So we were dealing with a lot of stuff as a family when my because I had my adult children when I was quite young. And then there's like this 10 year gap and like the difference in what Keegan like Keegan my youngest son's growing up and his experiences versus my older kids and and the impact and how they were impacted differently and and but and interestingly enough also watching the kind of difference in resilience of both of them because the older kids kind of had to dealt with a lot more trauma themselves whereas Keegan had you know different father and two parents who are in a very different place and you know some of my mom's stuff was not as intense for a lot of his growing up and it's just interesting to watch. But I think you the the and I love the the kind of the mission of what you're up to with the company you're working with in Australia because it is to me about creating safe spaces to communicate and talk about these things. And and to me it's like about humanizing the conversation around trauma specifically because I think a lot of people have it like trauma is this like big thing and it's like oh I haven't had trauma like I wasn't raped or I didn't live through a war I wasn't abused or and it's I think you know I love Gabor Mate's definition of trauma which is trauma isn't what happens to us in our lives. It's what happens inside of us as a result of what happens to us. And it's a very individual unique experience. And I think part of just living in the world that we live in today, which, you know, I think it's important to note we we're making a huge progress. Things are moving in the right direction. You wouldn't know that if you listen to mainstream media it would not appear that way. But if you actually look at statistics and even around the conversation around poverty I had a friend of mine who works at Crossroads International she's the executive director does a lot of work in sub-Saharan Africa and like runs a volunteer coordination agency we have made huge strides in in completing that goal around poverty. Is there some to go still 100% but I think it I think it is important on this journey to celebrate the successes and actually highlight and speak about the successes because you don't hear a lot about that in the world, right? If you're if you're listening to the CNNs and the foxes and even what people post on social media, right? We hear way more about how we're still all doing damage to each other and and what's not working.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

I think there's a bit of an addiction we have as human beings to focus on the what's not working versus what is um well just to just to hit in on that though that I think that's where the opportunity lies yeah but and you know things like aid hub and some of the stuff you guys are doing there and um is this whole piece around knowledge share and then the impact reporting that's coming off the back of this right so I think that's that's that the next step we all know why most of us at least know why this stuff needs to happen. There's things like the global goals or you know a lot of research now that says what needs to happen and how it kind of needs to happen and we're trying to figure that the how part out at the moment as well but really that next step I think is that that impact measurement and you're starting to see um you know we've got companies in our network that have things like SDG scorecards um it's all data driven um you know you're starting to see reporting um that's not just box ticking like you say that's celebrating some of these amazing companies with with real time tangible wins on the ground and not just out of the box social enterprise right like I do take my hat off to some of these massive corporations that are moving the needle they they they cannot move it fast. That's just the reality of the situation that they're in. If you look at people like BP and whatnot some of these big yes cop you know polluters of the world the economics that surround their companies they can't just turn it off overnight right but they are moving the needle and that does need to be celebrated in some way but yes there's a ways to go um and looking at some of the companies that are that are leading this space and I think that's where the the inspiration comes around you know it can be done. And this is kind of why we tap into the the corporate model as well with 17x and find some impact leaders or ESG leaders if they're you still using CSR, whatever you know position. But grabbing people from some of these bigger corporate brands we had someone from EY speaking in in um in Perth we've had the head of purpose at Fujitsu speaking in Brisbane um we've had um the head of the UN Global Compact teed up in Melbourne some some really Big brands and what we get to learn from them, you know, if you're thinking about the smaller operators, when you can look at what can a big company achieve with size, scale, distribution, people, resources, how can we box that down and make it into something that we can, you know, create at an SME level where we have agility, speed, and you know, adaptability and innovation at our fingertips. Um, but I uh yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. And I and sell 17x is absolutely about celebrating and learning from those that are achieving in this space that we can then take back with, but then on the other flip side of that is that Australia um currently sits at about I think it's 38th in the world in terms of the STG reporting. So for me, that's fucking shit. We need to change it. To be blunt, that's that's absolute bullshit. There are some things that I want to call bullshit on, and things that's one of them, you know, and that's part of sorry. I probably shouldn't be swearing on your podcast, but that's that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

I'll just I'll just check the box for explicit on your on your I don't have to do it after it's made.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

My mum will smack me for that one. Um but yeah, it's you know, it's I I just get really frustrated that a comp that a country like I nearly said company, a country like Australia is lagging behind in many ways. But yeah, I don't think it's too much for us to get from 38 to top 20 and then top 10, because there are some really cool things happening in this country that won't take long to scale and really push us into the next generation.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

So well, and I love that part about learning from from each other, right? Like I just found someone posted on, I think it was my dad actually. I I'm from New Zealand originally, right? And so my dad just posted that like research has shown that New Zealand's farmers, sheep farmers are the most energy or climate efficient or whatever in the world, right? So it's like, you know, and and I did some consulting work in healthcare back in Canada not too long ago. And it's like, why do we keep trying to reinvent the wheel? Right. Like there are out there people out there effectively delivering publicly funded healthcare in the world. Go talk to them, find out what they're doing, and how can we apply it, right? Like, why do we have to like keep and this is this whole part about knowledge sharing? And I do agree, AHEB is gonna have, you know, I look forward to the future where I can literally give you a database that's easy to use that says, here, Mick, here are all of like buy NGO and company working in the HGCSR space globally, and these are their top five gaps. This is where they're challenged. And then you can look by region and you can say, wow, okay, all of the NGOs and not-for-profits working on goal two in this area of the world, you know, their top gap is strategic advice, or their top gap is funding, or their top gap is policy, you know, working to finding ways to work together because these are this is the bigger, like I do future state work with people, right? Where we like, what's the future actually look like? And if we were to to map out what does that future actually look like when we fulfilled these goals? What what new organizations that didn't exist before are going to need to exist? What new ways of actually collaborating? It's not easy to move money between countries and for people in different countries to put projects together, to share, you know, where do the funds sit? Like the the world marketplace and and governments and how the we're governed globally or you know, not governed globally. How does all of that actually get in the way of us being able to effectively partner and solve these problems, which you know affect all of us on this planet? They're not these problems that we're talking about aren't problems that just affect one country or one group of people. These are these are really problems or challenges that we all share. And yes, in saying all of that, there may be a part of me that's like really pushing for you know a federation of planets like Star Star Trek Star Trek. Because I'm a big geek. Um, really, like when we we get we have the opportunity, those of us who are like creative in that way, to say, oh my God, like what would we need to invent that has never even been thought about to solve these problems? Because frankly, if we could solve them with the ways with the things that we've been doing, the actions that we've been taking, the way we've been working up until this point, we would have solved them already, right? So there's like a gap between where we are now and where we need to be. And and so then the fun conversation is how do we close those gaps?

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Yeah, man. Like imagine the response, like the response. I think it's this threat thing, right? So it's like a threat response. The the challenge right now, if you look at things like climate change and whatnot, is that the threat response is kind of not near enough. The like the global collaboration that happened during the pandemic. You know, if we could replicate that, I go back to the um, I I I think I spoke about this somewhere recently. Um, I watched the Independence Day with my kids a little while back. Love that movie. Yeah, it's such a cool movie. It's like movie night amazing. Like, what are we gonna watch? And I'm like, I'm so sick of Pixar. Can we just watch a movie that's that's got real humors in it? So we landed on um Independence Day. I'm like, you guys are gonna love this, and while we're watching it, I'm going, like, there's this thing, you know, it's very, yes, it is very America set, you know, saves the day, but there's a piece in it at the end where the president's like doing his thing and he's like, this will be our independence day kind of thing. And because there's this external threat, the the borders all disappeared, right? It became earth and an alien. And recently we kind of had kind of much more than what we have had, is we kind of had earth and a pandemic. And hopefully we have earth and a the global community and fixing the earth. Um, because the innovation that comes out on the other side of that, once those egos and borders get out of the way, like you say, is the what if question of okay, let's paint that picture and then work backwards and have some fun, you know, getting along the way. And I started listening to uh Bill Gates during the um some of his stuff during the um pandemic. And he was running a podcast with Rashida Jones, who's an actress or actor, um, in uh Hollywood. And they were asking, well, I think it was like Ask the Big Questions or something. They only did about five series, and um, he did one, they did one on climate change, and some of the stuff that he was talking about really scared crap out of me. I was like, wow, this is hectic. However, that guy's brain on asking right questions, you're talking about asking the right questions earlier on. I I very didn't really pay much attention to Bill Gates outside of him, you know, he's some rich guy that was Microsoft and whatever, and he does some really cool stuff in the you know, in the foundation spaces of Phil, you know, he's cured polio and done some other things or eradicated polio. Um but then yeah, like if you go and anyone listening, if you haven't listened as much to Bill Gates stuff, go and dig in some of his innovation spaces where he starts asking interesting questions. And that guy's ability to unpack thoughts is super fascinating because it sits in the positive, it sits in the what if we did this and what if we did that. It's not, oh, we're not doing enough over here, we're not doing that. It's what if we did this, because obviously his resources are unlimited, right? So it's not a question of where do we get the resources like look, we got all the resources, so let's just what if and away you go. And I think when you take the resource out of the equation and go, yeah, have these um sorry, what was the quote? You used future stand future questions.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

But like yeah, like what would need to get created in order, like what what organization, like just in general, what organizations, entities, partnerships, collaborations, technology.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

I think you called it, yeah, future state mapping.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Like that's such such a cool headspace to be in if you think about innovation, right? Yeah. Um, and uh yeah, so I think you need to have a future mapping session with Bill Gates.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

I remember Billy.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Let's create that. I would love that. You know, the other thing is like, and we could, I feel like I could talk to you forever, Mick, and I feel like we will be talking for a long time to come. But the other thing is like having the like being willing to have the conversations that matter, right? To your point. So I remember watching Spee C Spiracy a while ago and this whole conversation around, you know, climate change in the oceans and saving the oceans. And and and in that documentary, I think it's still available on Netflix, they say, you know, like, not that we shouldn't stop trying to get rid of single-use plastics, but like if every single human being on the planet today immediately stopped using single-use plastics, it still would only make a tiny dent in what needs to get done to take plastic out of the oceans, because the majority of plastic, like over 50% of the plastic in the oceans comes from fishing nets. And no one wants to even talk about because a lot of the not for profits in this space don't want to get into a conversation with their members about what don't eat fish or eat fish, or you know, and this is even the conversation around veganism and and like cows and the planet. And I'm like, I don't care whether people eat fish or not. I care that we get fishing nets out of the ocean. So let's, who do we need to get around a table? What who needs to be there to start having that conversation and not from a place of you shouldn't eat fish, it's wrong. Don't judge people's food choices or how they want to live their lives, right? But empower people to start actually having a conversation that's going to make a meaningful difference. If we could get the right people around the table and figure out a constructive solution to have fishing companies responsible for their nets or getting their nets out of the ocean, you know, then that's a huge step forward in solving the SDG around, you know, life under the water, right? But it's like we don't talk about that because people don't want to have other conversations. So to me, part of the all of this as well is like, are we asking the right questions and are we creating safe spaces and forums for people to actually have the conversations that are going to move the needle forward in in a much faster way? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

That circles right back to something you said at the beginning about asking the right questions, right?

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Fixing plastic in the ocean isn't about stopping eating fish, it's about changing the materials you use to get the fish in the first place. Like fix the actual problem.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

Root cause analysis, right? Getting to the getting to the actual root of things. Mick, you're awesome. I really acknowledge you. Um, you know, just for being someone who's willing to have your life be up to something bigger than yourself, first with your family and your wife, and and then with all of the other people that you're serving through the various different ways that you know you have an impact in the world. So just um thank you for being that kind of human being that's willing to have your life be up be about something bigger than you. And um, you know, for I just look forward. I'm excited to keep ta dancing in conversation with you and and see what gets created over time.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Very cool, Amber. Great for being here. Thanks for um thanks for sharing some space with me. I really, really had a good time.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Yeah, me too. For everyone listening to the show, you can follow up with Mick and everything he's up to in the show notes and uh find out all about 17X and uh find out how to connect with them there. And just thank you for joining us in this conversation. And uh, I will see you next week. And I love you all.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out what wouldamberdo.com