Resilience When It Matters Most - Lessons in leadership, purpose and navigating uncertainty with Peter Baines OAM

In this episode we’re joined by Peter Baines OAM—former NSW Police forensic investigator, international disaster response leader, and founder of Hands Across the Water.

Peter has led teams through some of the world’s most confronting crises, including the Bali bombings and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami—experiences that shaped his deep understanding of leadership and resilience under pressure. 

Today, he works with organisations around the world, helping leaders perform when it matters most.

In this conversation, we’re exploring what resilience really looks like—not just in extreme crisis, but in everyday business—especially for mortgage brokers navigating uncertainty, pressure, and constant change.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hi, Outsourcins, and welcome to the Inside Outsource Podcast. Proudly brought to you by Outsource Financial. I'm your host, Janille Gibson, and I'm excited to be bringing you these conversations designed to support, inspire, and elevate you in your brokering journey. Today we're joined by Peter Baines, OAN, former New South Wales Police Forensic Investigator, International Disaster Response Leader, and founder of Hands Across the Water. Peter has led teams through some of the world's most confronting crisis, including the Bali bombings and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Experiences that have shaped his deep understanding of leadership and resilience under pressure. Today he works with organizations around the world helping leaders perform when it matters most. In this conversation, we're exploring what resilience really looks like, not just in an extreme crisis, but in everyday business, especially for mortgage brokers navigating the uncertainty, pressure, and constant change. First of all, say thank you very much, Peter Baines, for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Can you just give us a bit of an insight of your background?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

The background, I guess, was pretty unconventional to lead to speaking um around the world on stages. And I worked with New South Wales Police as a forensic investigator for 20 odd years. And my role was attending scenes of major crime incidents and homicides and suicides and so forth, and looking for, identifying, collecting and interpreting evidence and presenting that evidence. And the real change, I guess, came as a result of the Bali bombings in 2002, for those that might remember. 88 Australians were part of the 202 who died. And as a senior forensic investigator with New South Wales police at the time, I was deployed into Bali and uh as part of the uh the team to identify the victims, both Australian and foreign nationals. And it was a you know pretty difficult task because there was a lot of a lot of bodies that weren't intact and um severely traumatized from the the fire and the blast. And then it was a you know, it was a criminal investigation. It was a it was a terrorist act. And the work I did it there in Bali positioned me, uh, certainly within Australia, that if something else happened in that region that we would be deployed. And that's then what happened with Boxing Day tsunami. I was on holidays, got a call and sent to Thailand, and I would lead both the Australian and the international teams in the identification of five and a half thousand bodies that we recovered. And that was a humanitarian response, you know, where Bali was a criminal response, uh, Thailand was just a humanitarian response. And I was leading both the the Australian and international teams in in that identification work and was there on rotation. We'd spend a month there and come home and then go back. And uh that occupied really all of 2005. Then it worked for Interpol in Lyon, in France. Uh I wrote a highly classified paper on counterterrorism, which was all around chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. And what I was basically doing was looking at and researching what were the global terrorist threats in those four areas and wrote a classified paper that was um presented to a number of countries that we have alliances with, and then shared a declassified version of that paper shared um broad more broadly. And uh that was only supposed to be 12 months. I lived in Lyon in France and worked with Interpol. And it was actually while I was presenting that paper, and I was invited by the UN Officer of Drug and Crime in Southeast Asia to uh work with them on capacity building and leadership around terrorism in Southeast Asia. And then that took me on another path for 18 months. And so that was uh that was my professional career. And and then a turning point came. I'd started this charity called Hands Across the Water um to support kids in Thailand after the tsunami. And and uh I guess it was a decision either continue with my professional work or continue with the charity. Both couldn't coexist. And uh I resigned from the police and and uh started uh focusing on the charity. And that's where we are today, you know, 20 years on from starting that uh I make my living speaking at conferences and spend most of my time um, you know, working with uh or supported the charity.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

That's amazing. It's an amazing story and such a a pivotal shift from one completely, well, one has kind of led you to the uh the next. Correct. Yeah. So how did you find the mindset shift to go from such a regimented career into that really humanitarian aspect of the hands across this the water charity?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

One of the biggest changes was how quickly I could move. And uh, you know, in the early days it was just me, you know, raising money, you know, setting the course for the charity, and then we got a board, and you know, for many years I was just here's my ideas, here I'll go and raise the money, and this is where we'll spend it. And I think that was the biggest contradiction was how slow, you know, change could occur within the police, you know, and being a big government organization with 20,000 people, you know, things are heavily regulated through policy and procedures. And and I understand that. I understand you, you know, the benefit of that. And having spent my, you know, so much of my career giving evidence before district and supreme courts and criminal inquests, I understand the need for all of that. But, you know, the more regulation we put in place, the more policy we put in place slows us down. It hampers innovation, creativity, and leadership. And and uh so I stepped from a highly regulated, highly governed industry into where I was the master of my own domain, basically. And and you know, if I wanted to uh build a new home for kids and and it was gonna cost $400,000, well, all I had to do was go and find the money, raise the money, and and we could build the home.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

And uh and that was probably the biggest change.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

You talk about around that leadership without authority. You were talking about four key things in relation to that leadership without authority. Can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, sure. I think there were four four key things that I saw positioned Australian leaders um in Thailand. And I guess I set that up by saying the Australians arrived into Thailand without any, there was no international leadership structure with an event of this scale in mind. And uh every country just assumed that they would look after their own. But um when you had something that had so many foreign nationals and so many different agencies, there was there was no structure. The leaders were identified by what they did. And this is where the Australians stepped in and took these positions of leadership. And there were four things. There was the speed that they acted with that they moved with. Because if you wait until you've got all of the answers, there's a good chance your competitor will move before you. So you've got to find the balance, right? Of not going off too early and and and jumping the gun. But if you wait, you'll miss the opportunity. And that was what positioned the Australians was. So it was speed, it was sensitivity. So bringing about change. We know that people can be reluctant to change, and we had to implement some pretty big change programs in Thailand to basically tell the Thais working in Thailand that they couldn't do it anymore. They had to follow our policy. So big change program to bring about. And that was leading with sensitivity and uh understanding the points of resistance before we started the change program. The third was having a structure in place. You can't just make a policy up and procedure up where you've got three and a half thousand bodies in one temple. But that's to my point, then is you know, if you have too many policies, too many procedures, you take away the creativity, you take away the innovation. So again, it's finding the balance. And then finally, it was around simplicity. Comes a point in time where we just have to make decisions. And if we act with good faith, good integrity, good intent, we make a decision and get it wrong, we'll be forgiven. But if we fail to make decisions for fear of making the wrong decision, well, we won't be forgiven. So they were the four things I think that positioned the Australians well.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Really resonates with our members as well in relation to, you know, s the key things they can put in place and to ensure their own leadership rises above and moves forward with that momentum as well. You also talk about, you know, we can't change what's happened, but we can change what happened. A lot of our mortgage brokers, they are dealing with their clients who might be struggling through some quite significant financial difficulty in today's environment. You know, is there any strategies that you can talk to us about that can really help them to adapt, to not so much take that on as their own problems and through that still support their clients through that financial difficulty?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

You're in an industry where the biggest to market influences are outside your control. You know, what happens with interest rates, what happens with, you know, house prices, what happens with consumer confidence? That's beyond your control. It's beyond the the broker's control. But what they can do is respond to the conditions they find themselves in, not the ones they were hoping for. They can't make that influence. And and I think there's this wasted energy if we're talking about the negative that we're confronted with. If we can't change that, let's focus our energy on how we can respond. And I think the the the second part to your question is around, you know, the the the clients of the brokers who are feeling the pain. You know, I don't think as a as a client that they're looking at their broker uh to with an expectation that they be able to bring interest rates down, right? There's an acceptance that there's only so much you can do through negotiation on and relationships. They can't change that. I think if the the best thing the brokers can do is be present, they don't have to bring about change, they don't have to solve the the problems, but by being present, by being in contact with their clients, it says that they care and they understand. Because, you know, someone going through uh mortgage pain and and so forth, they want to know that they're heard. They want to know that that their pain is being felt. And there's no real expectation that the broker then, you know, reduce the uh reserve bank interest rates, but for they can just be heard. So I think the biggest advice that I would offer is to respond to the conditions that we're in, not the ones you were hoping for, and be present.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Now we also have a considerable amount of emerging leaders. Have you got any key advice for those emerging leaders? What are some of the key aspects that you found worked for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, I think that there's there's a number of things there. I think first that I'd say is that action will always beat intention. And uh, we can talk about what we're going to do, but you know, we can't succeed or fail until we we do it. Don't wait to have the courage to lead, because the courage comes once you've led. You know, like the ta taking on difficult things, difficult situations, whether it's around the emerging leaders stepping into a leadership position, taking on hard things is good for us. That's where the growth comes from. We build resilience, we build strength, we build courage, we build leadership by facing difficult times and making difficult decisions. And getting it wrong is better than not making a decision. You know, I think the the other thing is having a real clear understanding of your clarity of purpose. So as a business, you know, is it as many clients as you can have? Is it as, you know, servicing a smaller client base better? Is it um, you know, maximizing profit? Well, whatever your measures are, if you're true to those and if you understand what they are, then it helps you make difficult decisions moving forward when you understand what your personal and business non-negotiables are. So having that clarity of purpose as a leader, because it's hard for people to follow if they don't know the direction. And I think sharing that and involving others in your success and in the journey. You know, I talked today about a 1400 kilometer run I did in Thailand. Um, on the first morning before we set off, I gathered the group together, you know, 4 30 in the morning. We huddled under the light of the uh hotel outside before I took my first step and I said, Together we can. That just came to me. And that became our mantra and became the name of my fourth book. There's a plug there.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yes, and where can we find that book, Beth?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

We we can find that on peterbaines.com.au. I've got four books. One, the second book is is about uh turning uh philanthropy into a into a cost center. And then the fourth book is Together We Can. And the success of the run and the success of the book was because of the collision between purpose, passion, and people. You know, if we think about the journey and our success as as our own, um then it'll be a lonely place.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

You were talking about, you know, you need that one person to be able to believe in you to get you going. So in in those darkest moments when you were experiencing immense pain, what were some of these mindsets that you or helped you through those darkest days?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

The biggest challenge came on day 14 where I uh ended up with shin spleents, which turned into a stress fracture. So, you know, for however many days I was running 60Ks a day with a stress fracture in my leg. And, you know, that the the resolve and the resilience had to come with from within. Uh, you know, it wasn't about anyone else, you know, providing the motivation or or steering me on. And, you know, we certainly uh set up communication protocols before the run. That was for them not to entertain me when I was in pain and not to use words like you've done enough and you know, you've done so well, and and nothing like that. It was um they could have conversations around whatever they wanted as a team in private, but I didn't need uh sympathy. I didn't need them saying, you know, perhaps you should stop or anything like that. We had triggers as to what were the medical reasons why I could be pulled off the road and there had to be thresholds met across different areas there, but that was all pre-established. So we didn't have emotional conversations on the road. You know, where did the, I guess, the resilience come from during the really difficult time was it was just this, you know, will and you know, within myself, knowing that the pain, physical pain I was experiencing would pass. And each day when I stopped and jumped into the ice bath, there was relief. That the pain that I was experiencing would stop. But if if I quit, if I I if I stopped running, if I was pulled out of the run, that pain would haunt me forever. And and I was so conscious of that because this wasn't a run that I could defer, it wasn't something I could come back next year. It was for the 20th anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami. So finishing on the 26th of December, 2024, 20 years to the day, was non-negotiable. And I think because that was so strong in me, I just continued and and had the belief that I could get it done.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

And that really sort of takes it back to what you were saying, those key things in relation to ensuring you've got that purpose and and everyone's clear on that purpose and ensuring that you know together you're walking, you're working towards that. It's it's it's remarkable. You you talk about not letting yesterday define tomorrow. And I I can hear with with just the stories that you're able to explain and the experiences that you've lived through, it's a true testament to that statement. Um, any thoughts in relation to how that can transfer into a business owner?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Whether we are in a business, whether a broker, whether a financial advisor, a lawyer, accountant, whatever, at the end we're all we're all faced with similar challenges. And the the challenges that brokers will face in their business are no different than to others on a contextual level. You know, we will all experience good times that they will pass. We will all experience uh bad times. They too will pass. And this was a thing over 26 days of running 60 kilometers a day in the heat of Thailand, there was going to be good times and there was plenty, and it was the best thing I've ever done in my life. There'd also be plenty of bad times, and there was. But they passed because it was over such a long journey. I knew there'd be all these emotions. And we talk about it in, you know, ultra running that it's almost welcome, those bad times, because you know they're gonna come. You can't do something like what I did, or you run 100 K's through the bush in an ultra, ultra marathon and and not experience good and bad times. And if your mindset is only set for the good times, then you're not ready to deal with bad times. So it's almost like when the bad time comes, when the pain really hits and you go, okay, now I get to work. This is where it really starts. Um, and then so if you're prepared for that, then you can deal with it better. But on the balance of that, it's uh, as you said, one of the things I say is don't let yesterday define your tomorrow. And that can be in both ways. If you've had a really difficult quarter, a really difficult day, a really difficult period, that doesn't mean that the next is going to be the same. Conversely, if you've had a really profitable quarter, a really profitable month, doesn't mean the next one's gonna be the same. So we can't let yesterday define our tomorrow. And every day on that run, I woke up and it was a new day. I still had all the pain, I still had all the blisters.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

When you're running for so much and so far, it's sometimes okay, one step in front of the other, one step after the other. And that can relate through to business as well. What are your thoughts around how can I make sure, get the momentum to move forward?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

You know, I think there's a f there's a few things there. One is that, you know, having the the clarity and then also not expecting to have the courage or the confidence, because that only comes once you've done it. I never knew that this would be a success until I'd finished. And, you know, it's it's about what we're willing to do as opposed to what we think our capabilities are. The vast majority of the population underestimate their abilities and decide what they'll do or what they're capable of, either based on what other one someone else has told them they can do, or this inner voice that says that they can't do it. But it really comes down to what we're willing to do. You know, I started this campaign of running 33 marathons in 26 days in the heat of Thailand, not from the basis of an endurance runner. You know, I'd run one marathon in my life and I didn't particularly enjoy it before I committed to this. And part of the attraction and appeal was because there was so much uncertainty. There was so little certainty around finishing. You know, there was a massive risk that I wouldn't pull it off. And, you know, it's there's plenty of people who I've spoken to since who are close to me who said, I never thought that was possible, never thought you'd get it done. And they didn't share that with me prior. But it's what we're willing to do. And I think the other thing is um sometimes we can have our big goals when we talk about, you know, that importance of clarity and why, but we also need to understand the how. We need to understand what are the things we do today. If a broker is sitting there and they're going, I want to grow my list by 30% or so forth, and that's, you know, they want to have this many clients, they want to have this kind of profit margin, they want to have whatever the measures are within their business, that might be their goal for the year, right? But sitting there hoping to that will manifest is not enough. So we can have the clarity, we can have our why, and this is what we want to achieve, which will give us financial freedom, which will allow me to buy my house. But we've got to understand what do we do? Is it then I'm making phone calls, I'm doing networking, I'm however you guys get the clients. You've got to understand, well, then there's the work to get to this. And I think so you can have that, you know, that big picture, which is necessary, but also when you get into the trenches, you've got to understand what's the next step metaphorically and literally to achieve that bigger goal.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

What is very important, the why is what's driving you, but it comes down to the how. And you really expanded on that. And thank you, thank you so much for that. When you talk about that uncertainty, we within our industry, it's constantly evolving and it is an absolutely uncertain environment. So I I really feel there is so much that we can all take out from what you were talking about in relation to our day-to-day moving forward. And in an environment that is so uncertain and unstable, you talked about some of the key things that can keep you on track. Any other advice that our business owners and our members can use to help them weather the storm in a world and an environment that can be seen so uncertain. How can we build that resilience to get up the next day and find that next client and focus on the how? Any thought that can help us like weather the storm.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Action brings clarity. The more you do, the clearer you will become. And when you talk about uncertainty, you know, we arrived. I walked through the gates of a temple in Thailand. There were three and a half thousand decomposing bodies laying on the ground. And the the state of decomposition was fairly advanced. And it was getting worse. And uh people say, I can't imagine what that looked like. And that's a good thing. You don't need to, right? Three and a half thousand decomposing bodies. Where do you start? What do you do? There was no plan. There's no procedures manual to open up and say, well, what do we do when we've got three and a half thousand decomposing bodies? It was never imagined that we would be doing a job like this. So you start by taking action. And the more you do, the clearer you will become. You know, we had one of Australia's leading pathologists uh at the end of some of the early days. He sat and he said, All we can do here is a token effort because it's so big. But of that five and a half thousand that all through Thailand, there'd be over five thousand identified. So it wasn't a token effort by any stretch of the imagination. But it's the more you do, the clearer you become. You know, it's taking action, you know, it's it's getting up each day when you don't want to, you know, like that when that alarm went off at four thirty each morning when I was running, I didn't bounce out of bed with enthusiasm. You know, like it was uh it was painful. You know, it started with uh my wife, as I said, sticking needle to drain the fluid that had built up overnight so I could put my shoes on to start running again. You know, and walking from the hotel room to the bus each day to take breakfast. It was painful. You know, sitting in the bus thinking I've got 60 kilometers today was painful, but it was never coming to me. I had to go to it. And it was just a case of well, get out at work through that pain of a morning. That bad time will pass and you will experience the good times.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, this too will pass. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You you really talk around, you know, hope is not a plan. And thinking around exactly as you've just mentioned that how do you feel that can translate across to running a business?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Learning came from the counter-terrorism times of um, you know, we can't just hope that something won't happen. But then there is only so much contingency planning you can do because it's um, you know, it's such a uh such a difficult area. I'm talking about the terrorism now and to to prevent um when you've got someone with such a focused mindset and uh so determined and committed and operating either on their own or with one or two others, it's such a difficult thing. But just hoping that it won't happen is not enough. Therefore, then we have to do things that we think are right to build our capacity, to build our resilience, to build our resolve to meet the challenges. Sometimes we won't know what those challenges are going to be until they're uh upon us. Who ever would have thought that we would live through a global shutdown, you know, and how long it would last? And those that did well was they just found a way to respond to the conditions we found ourselves in, not the ones we were hoping for. You know, if if you sat there as a business owner just hoping for it to end, there's a good chance you might not be in business now. You know, you had to respond to what was before us.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

In today's environment, we are faced with a lot of people out there, organizations out there that are really trying to defraud us, to really try and take advantage of the willingness and the ambition and the opportunities. How do you feel we can balance the need for that next deal versus making sure that I'm not jeopardizing my good name and my good business? Yeah. Any thoughts on how we can manage that balance?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? It's um, you know, part of that is about what's most important to the broker. Is it about having as many clients as I can and shouldering the risk and uh saying, well, I'll deal with the fallout that comes from those, but because I'm bringing so many in and my, you know, conditions to to engage uh are quite low and I want maximum numbers, then I'm gonna be exposed, right? If that's what their business model is, well, then you accept that there's going to be leakage and breakage. You know, there's at the very other end, you could have a client, uh, a broker who is uh so determined not to let anything like that in, they turn away a lot of business. And then at the end of the year, they look and say, well, we've had no breakages, no leakages, no, you know, defraud and so forth, but they've got a small client base. So, you know, I really think that's up to the broker to decide what their level of uh their risk tolerance is. And then it's building the systems and processes to meet that. And, you know, I worked in an area within the forensic science area where as individuals and our practices we're accredited through ISO standards. And ISO standards are about being able to demonstrate that you do what you say you do. So it's no good saying this is how we would um handle forensic evidence if we didn't have a process to document that. And then you can stand up in court where you're you're tested, you're rigorously cross-examined um on what you've done. And if you've got the process to stand behind, then that will serve you well. But that's also, you know, almost counter to what I said earlier around reducing, you know, the more policy you put in place takes away creativity, innovation, leadership, and so forth. That's what's business is about, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

You know, it's about finding, you know, what am I prepared? What's my cost for the next client? And in the charity sector and where I operate, you know, we've got to look at, well, who who are we prepared to take money from? Who are we prepared to engage with? What organizations do we say we don't would prefer not to engage with you for different reasons and turn away money, turn away clients, you know, what's the level of interaction we allow for people to have connections with our kids, for example, you know, and so it's the same type of thing that we've got to find. Like the the safest thing we could do is say all of our supporters who join us on one of our bike rides time and we finish at one of the homes. Now, if we said we don't want any risk at all, we would never let the bike riders see the kids. We'd keep them completely separate. That doesn't build engagement. That doesn't build connection, doesn't build trust between the bike riders who then get to arrive at the home and see the home, see the kids, see what we've built, see where their money's going. So then we've got to have standards and procedures and practices in place to go, well, how do we manage the risk? You know, really confident that we've got that. We've never had an incident with our bike riders. But again, it's a it's a cost for us, it's a balance of risk. It's what's our risk tolerance of where our next client or sponsor or dollar is coming from and no different in business. You decide the risk that you're prepared to take, and then you work deal with the consequences of, you know, things getting through the cracks or having such a robust business, you turn away clients that otherwise would have come in.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

It's good to hear that you, you know, you put that structure in place. You had not overabundance of policy, but you ensured that measures were met to ensure that interaction and engagement did happen. And I think, you know, that's that's fabulous. Any uh final thoughts that you have for our brokers out there in the network?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

The environment you're in that's there'll always be regulations and that and so there should be for the protection of of clients and in the finance industry, you know, those providing advice and whether it's around home loans or where you put your investments is there needs to be that kind of compliance and governance and and for the protection of all. And we've just got to find the balance and but don't miss opportunities because of uh, you know, having a fear of of stepping forward and because that's where we, you know, facing big challenges where where the growth comes from.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Thank you so much for your time today. And um I want to uh just express to every members that's listening today, I do absolutely endorse and recommend that you head over to Where Peter.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah, just to my website is Peter Baines, B-A-I-N-E-S.com.au, and they can have a look at the books. And of course, if they wanted to look at the work we've done with the charity, and uh, you know, it's one of the things we we have all of our uh audited accounts up there and that and that's something that we choose to do around, you know, give that information and give that confidence, and that's at handsacrossthewater.org.au.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Brilliant. No, well I want to thank you so much for your time. Uh personally, I'm reading your books right now, so I can endorse and advocate, go and have a look and thanks, Tony. You know, it's brilliant. A great read and so inspirational. Thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

I think the big message that stands out is that resilience isn't about avoiding challenges, it's about how we respond to them, the actions that we take next. For everyone listening, whether you're running a business or navigating change, there's a lot here to reflect on. And Peter, thanks so much for joining us. And that's a wrap on today's episode of the Inside Outsource Podcast. We hope today's conversation has given you valuable insight, fresh perspectives, and ideas that you can take straight back into your business. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you follow the podcast and share it with your network. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you with us again next time.