Hatched Episode 3- The Power of Asking for Help: Leadership, Wellbeing & Finding Your Purpose

What happens when life completely changes your direction?

In this episode of Hatched, Dustin and Jenna sit down with wellbeing expert, academic, speaker, and founder Dr Tiffany de Sousa Machado for a deeply personal conversation about loss, resilience, purpose, and what it really means to live well.

After the sudden loss of her mother, Tiffany made a life-changing decision to walk away from a successful media career and return to university at 30 to pursue the path she'd always dreamed of. What followed was a journey through personal illness, postnatal depression, entrepreneurship, leadership, and ultimately finding purpose through helping others.

This isn't just a conversation about wellbeing. It's about navigating adversity, learning from failure, asking for help, and building a life aligned with your values.

In this episode:
✅ Why Tiffany left a successful career to start over at 30
✅ The personal challenges that shaped her life's work
✅ Lessons from building and closing The Village Foundation
✅ The importance of community and asking for help
✅ Balancing business, motherhood, and wellbeing
✅ Why gratitude is more powerful than most people realise
✅ What success really looks like beyond money and achievement

This episode is filled with practical wisdom, honest reflections, and powerful reminders about what truly matters.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed, stuck, or questioned whether you're on the right path, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Hatch Idea to Impact. I'm Jenna Demcourt. And I'm Dusty McMahon. This is a podcast where we sit down with people behind successful businesses to unpack their journey. The lessons, the setbacks, the mindset, and what shape them along the way. Real conversations about what it actually takes. Let's get into it. Alright, so today we're here with Dr. Tiff, well-being facilitator and program creator. Thanks for joining us, Tiff. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. So, what does a well-being facilitator do? Well, it's multifaceted in my work anyway. I do one-on-one consultations with people, either, you know, from anybody from CEOs to mums at home, and also go into corporate and do large corporate programs either throughout a year, like on a one, you know, on a whole year program or just a one-off where it's designed for a particular purpose. Also do retreats for individuals and off-sites for corporate lots of keynotes and speaking about whatever topic is up at the moment for wellbeing. You also work at uni. Yes. Now, what's your background? Where do you come from? Where did you grow up and stuff like that? Well, my background was the first, I was the first of my family to go to university. I have immigrant parents that came and did hospitality, like a lot of immigrant parents do. Um, and I just did that too. I finished school and I went into hospitality and I did lots of hospitality management for a while. And then I worked in various jobs in Sydney and in, you know, and in Adelaide doing tech and marketing and sales and IT and media, everything. Um, and then it was actually a pretty personal moment when my mum died very suddenly, and I was I was I didn't have time to go and see her, and um, I didn't have time to sit in the hospital. My job was so busy, and then when she died unexpectedly at that hospital stay, I realized I need to do something meaningful because if I'm gonna spend that amount of time away from people I loved has to be worth it, has to have meaning. So I quit my job and I went to uni for the first time at 30. Well so what job were you doing then? I was doing media. Media. Okay, what sort of media? I was doing planning and buying and and scheduling for companies. And it and it's a great industry, lots of perks, lots of money, lots of people, but it wasn't for me, it wasn't giving me any fulfilment, and um and especially having something quite sudden and drastic happen like that. So um yeah, I quit and I decided to do what I'd always wanted to do, which was psychology. Wanted to do that since I was eight years old, and um yeah, I went part-time. I had a little child, and so it took a long time, and I realized, well, I'm gonna be 40 one way or another, so I might as well be 40 with a degree in what I want to do. So yeah, I kind of started in the psych area. I moved to business, got a job at the university, and it's been great. Um, and along that path, there was a lot of life that happened as well that challenged me in terms of my own well-being. And um I was very I was forced to look at well-being in a different way to the mainstream because there was no answers in the mainstream, like in the medical system, there was no answers to fix what was going on with me, and I was dying, and you know, like blood transfusions for three years. I had 18 in a couple of years, and um there was no answer, and so I delved further into what I had already been interested in since I was 14 years old, which was life and spirituality and meaning and all of that stuff, and I did pretty much every modality of well-being that was available because I had to, because I had to get I had to live. Um, and it was through that process that I found some amazing teachers and some amazing programs that were shunned in the mainstream because they weren't backed up by science and degrees, and I decided I wanted to bring it in the for, I wanted to bring it more prominent. Um, and so I knew that I had to do that by making it research-backed, by doing the degree, by getting the PhD, and so it just kind of all flowed in. It's sort of interesting that you were working like media, you work in lot hospitality, and that obviously through loss of your mum, you've then moved into wanting to learn something that's sort of almost fallen into place with your own health and that that it's well. Um, and yeah, it just gave me a deeper understanding of the mind-body connection, the emotion and physical connection, which I'd always knew and I'd always understood on a one level, but I really, I really went there. Like it was a matter of my own survival to really understand that. And um, after three years, I did manage to get to the bottom of it, and I did have my daughter, which was kind of something I'd never wanted until then talking, you know, on my mum's literally on her deathbed, me saying, I'm so sorry, I will have kids because I'd always said I wouldn't. And then having a three-year illness, which prevented me from doing that. So it was just this mo it was the most intense three-year journey of self-discovery, but also trauma and loss and rebuild. And um, and I guess always been I was always great at uni. I'd like, you know, won three awards. I was given a scholarship for you know, Westpipe Future Leader Scholarship. It was was great at studying and I loved it, and I think then it just it tied into my lifestyle of being a a whole person. I and I say that because a lot of people don't live as whole people, they live as a physical being only and not as an emotional or a spiritual being as well. And I I live every day in all three spheres, and then I try and bring that into the work that I do. Well, I do bring that into the work that I do, um, and I sometimes need to disguise that a little bit, uh, but the fundamentals are the same. And so how I started the business, because I could easily just work at the university and have a fulfilling life there, uh, and I love my job at the university, but it wasn't fulfilling this part of me, and um it was actually again through tragedy of having my daughter and falling deep into postnatal depression without my mum, my partner, um, my husband at the time, had children, hadn't realized he really wasn't potentially up for this again, although he is a great dad now, but there was a lot of struggle for him. We broke up and um I was very, very alone, and I was and it was a it was a really difficult first two years of her life. And the first business that led into this one was born out of that deep lonely depression, which kind of made me think there mustn't, it mustn't be just me. And I actually ended up doing my whole PhD on postnatal depression around the world and studied in went and did my research in Sweden and brought back the findings. But it was basically it's we put it on the woman a lot, but it's actually circumstantial, environmental, societal, all of the things that made it, that make it us that we we then wear it. And without going into too much detail, I was like, there are more than me just out there suffering alone, trying to be corporate, trying to not being seen as being just a mum at home. The only time I ever got any kind of credit or praise was, oh, you're you're a mum and you run a business and you're doing a PhD, and you it's like, can't I just do one and be enough? And anyway. I've got a two and a half year old, and I I think you see there's so much, so much judgment on what like everyone's got a different way that they want you to be and wait and want you to act. So lot the pressures, yeah, I think definitely. And there's no support, and there's actually no societal we're not for children, and we're not for parents in this culture. We think we say we are, but we're we're really not, and I really got that when I went to Sweden and Iceland and realized these people are for children and for parenting. They've structured it in a way that made and the it's ubiquitous that children come first. It's whereas we don't do that here, and so and we wear it and we feel it, and it's not what's said, but it's how it's what's lived. Um, and so I started the Village Foundation, which was around um new parent support, and that went really well, sort of. And I spent seven years really pushing that and really building it, and we you know, we had national um partners, we were partnered with Uni SA, we built these great programs, we trained through the women's and children's, we did midwifery training for rural midwives, we did all of this stuff, but it just never it just the the model just wasn't quite right, and it just never went where I wanted it to go. Um and then I started doing the more generic or the more not generic but the more everybody well-being on request through that business until I realized that there's two separate things going on here, and I started this business because this is where this is where it was flowing, and I very much believe that you go with that, the flow. And so I after seven years of kind of slogging it out with the Village Foundation, I put that to bed, and this one's just going amazing. If you if you look back at the Village Foundation and you you've kind of worked hard at it, but it didn't get to where you want to go. If you could look back, what would you say was the reason that it didn't go where you wanted it to? Even though you're passionate about it for everything. I'd I'd answer on two levels. On a practical business level, it did not have a strong financial model. It wasn't built on, it wasn't built on making a profit. It was built on passion and cause, and I know that's a mistake that lots of social entrepreneurs make, and now I'm very much an advocate for social entrepreneurs building on a strong foundation. Um so that was the practical reason. On another level, it wasn't where I'm supposed to be. And I believe that when you throw everything, when you put every bit of energy into something, you do everything within your means, you connect, you collaborate, you've you're in alignment with a purpose, you're doing and it doesn't work, it's not for you. And so I did that, and then I went, okay, I surrender. It's not for me. And then all of that energy I don't believe is ever lost. I think, you know, as physics will tell you and also spirituality, anything you put out has a return. And so all of that energy and purpose and dedication and passion that I poured into that feels like it's coming back to me very easily with this business. It's interesting that I saw, yeah, there's something I saw the other day about that where they talk about business owners that like you shut that down. And a lot of the time, like generally people talk about it failed. Did it actually fail? You think about like all the people over seven years you said that you've supported, and that there's so many people out there that have helped. And then from those learnings, I in our business tend to use that term failing forward. Yeah, because what you learnt from that is obviously giving you great foundations to go into the next business pathway. And I think, you know, even reflecting on our journey. So we we met as individual brokers and then we were not really sure about doing a business partnership. And then we went, oh, well, we'll still run our brokerages separately, but we'll put something in the middle, and we'll we'll do a joint veteran and maybe see if that goes, but we'll still run it. We were never really in properly, and and so you know, over time we realised and and we had somebody say to us, you can't be half pregnant. And so you know, it's something we talk about a lot now from the day that we pulled the trigger and put all of our resources in together, our business has flourished. And so that's the when you're truly in and passionate about where you're going, yeah, it it works. Yeah. Um it's an interesting part as well, the business where you look at like it's obviously something you're very passionate about, but the financial modelling doesn't support like it, it's it's hard, like you can be passionate about certain stuff, but you can't actually it can't be financial, so you can't afford to do it. Yeah. How did you come to terms with that, I guess? Because I'm sure it was still hard. Yeah, oh, there was a lot of money lost or invested, I should say, in the lesson. Um, and you know, to me again, money comes and money goes, and it's an energy flow, and there's plenty out there, and if you're in alignment, it tends to just kind of work, and that's on one level. On another level, again, um on the more practical level, I realized, you know, if I want to do good things, I have to make money to be able to keep doing good things, and so there's a lot of people in that sector, in that social entrepreneurial sector, that feel bad about making money or um feel like it's not that's not you can't do that because money is evil or whatever. Money's not money is money. Um, but I found I I was, you know, the Village Foundation was um grant and grant funded basically. So it was always chasing another grant, and we got all the grants we chased, you know, except for one actually. And so it was it was fine if I wanted to keep doing that, but it took away from being able to do the the work I wanted to do and have the impact I wanted to have. And I mean it wasn't just that, there was there was other reasons as well. I think I wanted a bigger, I wanted to be able to talk to anybody and everybody, but yeah, I I don't think of failing in that way, definitely. I sometimes when I was deciding to close it, absolutely my ego was present, and I was like, but what will people? And it's like at the end of the day, no one cares. No one's no one's watching. Everyone's wearing their own face up. Yeah, and I through my Westpac connection, um, you know, we've been given some great opportunities to hear some worldwide speakers, and we had the founder of Netflix, and I I'll never forget um we're in this massive auditorium, and he had there was a huge screen. I I can't describe this, it was like a tennis court-sized screen behind him, and it was packed with logos, and only one of those was success, and that was Netflix. The rest were were failings, but of course they're not. They're just steps along the way. There's no way I could be doing this one had I not learned, as you said, everything I learned through doing Village Foundation, through the collaboration, through, you know, um, the connections I made through that, through the credibility I built through doing that. I guess as you're talking about like the money side of things, it's a bit like wellness. Like you can't with with your health, like your health and that, you can't help someone else until you help yourself and you're comfortable. So the money thing's almost exactly the same. You can't help other people or that if you're financially sinking at the same time. You've spoken a little bit about people that have helped you along the way and the support networks. And we speak a bit around, you know, you can't do it all on your own. Who have been the most influential roles in assisting your success? Westpac Foundation, because of the scholarship and the and the belief in us as people. So when they give one of their and I and I was fortunate enough to get two of their um of their scholarships, the wet the Social Change Fellowship and first the Future Leader Scholarship. But more than that, it's not that's actually not it's not about the money at all. It's the network and the belief and the support that they've given has been life-changing. I've been a part of that network now for nine years and I'm still actively involved. They have just been incredible. The team are amazing, the network is amazing, the support, the opportunities. I mean, I can I can't say anything except positive things about that whole process. Um, it's so interesting that the first thing that came up when you asked me that was actually a university uh supervisor of mine who was my mentor for seven years and then it ended very badly. In that whole breaking down of that relationship, it moved me into the business side of the bus of the university, which has been a very supportive and incredible place for me to flourish. And so her. But in a in a prior to prior to the breaking down of the system, no, no, it was all prior to that, like it was a great relationship. But it wasn't um but it wasn't helping in business until the breakdown of the relationship. So it's like a disguised gift, but everything is a gift in sometimes wolf's clothing. So that one was um definitely that's that act, I guess, supported me. Who else? Lots of people, all my friends and family, of course. I think connections I've made through the the Westpac stuff again. Some social entrepreneurs I work with have supported me from trusting me to run programs for them from the start. So they were my first, you know, my first client really, and they've just continuous. So we've worked together for five years now. Um, so they've been amazing. My bosses at the university have been amazing supports, particularly, you know, my former the former Dean, um Noel, and you know, everyone through there. My dad's amazing. My mum is amazing, though she's not here, because I hear her voice every day in my mind. Yeah. Um, and that is actually very supportive. I know I'm gonna forget people. The Faith Fuller Foundation, I know the Faith Fuller Foundation were amazing, and they supported me a lot through getting the grants, essay business grants I got like. And the thing is that everyone that you connect with, like there's mentors I've had one meeting with who have been influential because everything adds and it's all part of that beautiful, you know, web of support. I I think a lot of the people you meet that are successful in business, it's almost intergenerational. So you look at if we go and whether it's like their parents have been successful or whether they've had businesses that they've had to go through different learnings. You said your parents were in hospitality and that. What what sort of hospitality? What did you grow up around? I grew up at the back of restaurants and spent school holidays under my mum's desk in the back of a restaurant, colouring in with highlighters, being given five bucks to go to the news agent and you know, buy some stuff. Um, and then that quickly turned into well, every day after school, back of the restaurant till midnight, you know, going to school late because we were tired. But that was the life that you know, and when my mum and dad broke up, my mum was single mum, and there wasn't any other option, so I was out the back of the restaurant. But what that gave me was an incredible work ethic. I saw how she made connections, I saw the way she connected with people and built relationships through her clients and her her, you know, staff. Her staff are still, we're still family to her. And um, so the work ethic, the my mum was a great outside the box thinker, and she created a lot of new things in that sort of hospitality world back in the day. My dad as well, you know, quality, he was always about quality and doing the best to, you know, choose the best because then you'll have it forever kind of mentality. Total opposite to my family. We had the second-hand car that you're always repairing. We had everywhere. Was it quality? My parents were immigrants, like you know, we had money and then we had no money, and then we had money and then we had no money. We experienced both. Yep, yep. And my mum ended up, you know, having to close the restaurant during a rough time and no money, you know. Um, so we weren't, and my mum was literally a peasant from Lebanon, and my dad was from a very wealthy family from Portugal, but they met here and were were not upper class at all. It was they built whatever they had. And I wanted to add my ex-husband, because he actually taught me about money mindset as well, which I think is really important, and about trusting that it will come, you know, build it and it will come. But he really demonstrated that for me. And I was quite young, you know, he was older than me, and he taught me a lot about that, so that's played a lot into my success, I think, as well. Yeah. Anyway, and that's I guess you know, the build it and they will come. I've had the privilege of standing by your side as we have built it from from you know, from day one to where you are. Now and you know it's a testament to the hard work that you've put in. We talk about the role models of parents, and I know how big it is for you with the girls, and you know how you've tried to create something for them. How much are you making me crazy? Sorry, sorry about that. I did say it was just a compensation of the girls. Well because I guess yes, I have been on the journey with you and know what you've done for them and now listen. What I've never known is the background of how your parents tried that part, and that that's been a new development. What role does that drive send for you every day when you go to work? Everything. Literally everything I do is for them. I know that's cliche, but I want them to take certain things for granted. I want them to take the fact that where we live for granted. I want them to not strive to be in a really good suburb because then they'll feel like they are matter. I I I know I know that I'm not sure if I'm getting that across right, but they're polite and they're well-mannered girls, but also they grew up because I have been working so hard to give them the things that I wanted for them. Like they grow up, you know, in a beautiful suburb and they grow up being able to do the things that they want to do and what have you. And it's not because I want them to be spoiled, but I I want them to, I want them to know how much I do for them and I want them to know how much they mean to me, but also I just I don't want them to ever feel less than because of where they've come from. So I think before you said about the financial wellness that your ex-husband taught you, and and I I I want to delve into that a little bit more, but also around the girls, because one of the biggest things about sorry, I keep mentioning the girls. So women in business, there's different parameters for us, right? And then there's that constant battle between being a mum, torn between the school run, torn between putting food on the table, torn between helping the client because you're passionate about what you want to do. It is, you know, I hate I hate the word balance. It's spoken about so much balance. Like it's like a unicorn. It doesn't exist, right? We're tipping either way. Obviously, with what you do with wellness, it's a big element of what you talk about. What are some strategies for women in business and what's some things that have helped you manage work and life and being an amazing mother? Because you can't do all of the things that we're expected to do. But what is it? What is that non-negotiable in each of the roles that you have for me? So for me, then and it's different for everybody. For me, a non-negotiable was I want to do drop off and pick up. Like I never had that. I walked myself to school, I got buses home, I just never had it. The kids probably don't care, they'll probably happily get a bus, but like for me, it was important that I had that flexibility. So I don't have to do bake all bake all the bread, you know, or do all the cupcakes because that didn't speak to me as much, but I wanted to do that. Um, I want to take them away on breaks because travel and experiences quality time together, they may not love it, it might just be a fight fest for three days while we're away, but I know that when you think back to it, it's something that builds memory and connection. So I'm I do that a lot, and I think it's coming back to what is it that at the end of the day you don't want to live without? What is it that is a non-negotiable that if you fast forward 10 years and you look back, you don't want to have missed? And there's many things, but what is it that you absolutely fight for? And then make it work around that. So as much as possible. There are some days I say you're getting a bus, work until five bed, but most of the time I worked that kind of um values-based decision making for me, my value-based decision making, and for the girls. Like, what is it that is important? One of my daughters, it's all about the experiences, and one of them it's all about the quality time with me. We could literally sit in the car for an hour together and she'd be quite happy. And the other one is like all the talking in the car. I think I think I and I've done this with corporate women. I've said these there is a hundred, you know, let's map out all of your roles. So wife, um, or partner, mother, daughter, etc., worker. These are the tasks that belong to that role. Highlight your top ten that are not negotiable to you. What is it that you know that you would do anything to make sure that happens? And why? Where is that coming from? And once you really be honest around that, then you can let some other things go. And you don't have to do all the things that everyone else is doing, you know, just do the things that matter. So you've if you've gone through your tasks and worked out all the things you've got to do in your life, which there's a hell of a lot of things to juggle. I think it's a bit of a it can be some people frown upon it, but about the sort of almost outsourcing it. So like things like whether it's picking up the shopping or doing a shopping order or just different tasks that you don't, they're not your priority. How do you manage that or do you outsource it, so to speak? What do you do? Yeah, there's so many layers to this that I'm gonna try and remember to answer them all. It sounds simple, but to me it's not that it's not that simple. Yes, by the way, outsource, but how do we outsource? I think layer one is um those who can, should outsource and in a different way. Those who have the flexibility and are in a position in a job where they can say, I'm outsourcing, pick up to me, and I'm leaving flexibly and I'll, you know, my job and I can. I think a lot of that is part of the outsourcing is actually fighting for balance and fighting for flexibility for women who work and have children or men where possible. Not every woman is in that position to be able to do that. Some shift work or or whatever, you know, it is that's the hours and that's it. But when you can, I think we should fight for that and make it known. I'm not just here, I have a family at home and I'm responsible. And I just don't think it's loud enough on from men or women. I don't think it's made loud enough that we're doing two roles in the time frame of one. Secondly, is to outsource professionally. Absolutely. I get my shopping delivered maybe once every couple of weeks, I'll duck in to Foodland for some fresh stuff, otherwise, it's all delivered because I look at the value of what am I going to do with that hour? I'm either going to spend it with my kids or do some work or go to the supermarket when I can do a pre-done list and have it delivered to me. Absolutely. Um, if I can have a cleaner come and do the house, absolutely. Like that's quality time that I could be doing something of meaning and value that is on my list. And you know, going back to my mum, she'd sometimes choose to do the house over like coming out for lunch for me. And I think that she would regret that now, you know. Um, and so if it's going and taking the kids on a walk or to the park or clean the house, yes, if I cannot outsource that, I will. The most beautiful and rich part of life we can outsource is to our to our friends in our community and our co-parents because we don't have to do this alone, and I'm I am big on that parental side being shared. It's not designed to be done by one person alone. It's it's not designed that way. You know, it feels wrong and it feels lonely because it is. Um, and so I am always about creating community at the school or um in a friend group where it and a lot of us are single parents, and so if someone's sick, then someone else is making the soup and dropping it off. Sometimes I'm interstate and I'll ring a friend who's at school and go, can you take my daughter home from school and I'll pick her up after? Sure, no problem. Return the favour, make the school WhatsApp group, do what you can to build support system that isn't necessarily paid for, but that builds not only support, social support, but connection and um structure for the kids to grow up knowing they don't just have one person to rely on in their life, they actually have a community that they can go to and feel comfortable with. So I think it's layered that question, and I think outsourcing can have a bad connotation to it, but if you reframe it as creating community, creating social support, um giving as well as receiving, then so on that you it was Sweden, you said you're studying it? What what what did because I mean we where we live we've sort of got a village we call it because there's about five different unintended there? Oh yeah, yeah. Um but yeah, and like because there's so many young kids and that it's like it's awesome to have, it's like the Sandlock kids that well, once they get older it's gonna be. Um what do you find they do differently there because you said it's so much more around the children? Where what do you think from that that you've you take into it? Sweden was great support-wise, in terms of so if we break down social support from the research, there's five elements of social support, and they are great at two of those informational support, structural support, government support, like they're great at that. Leave, sick leave, flexibility, stay at home, dads get leave, mums get leave, like all of this stuff. But in terms of social, they're still a little bit lacking there, which is why I went over there because they still have the high, they still have similar levels of postnatal depression than we as we do, and I wanted to know why because they have all this support. But the two elements of support that were missing are the same two that are missing here, and they are appraisal and emotional support. So being able to go to another mum and say, Hey, my kid's not sleeping, like, and then not compete and lie and say, Well, mine sleeps through the night. In fact, instead, go, that's normal. Don't expect a good night's sleep for two years, like you're doing great. That's the appraisal side, and then the emotional um support of um supporting a new parent through the rite of passage of having a child, which is you know, there is loss, there's new identities being built, and then they're settling in, but we don't we don't do that, and neither does Sweden necessarily. So, but we're sort of focusing a lot on parenting, but it's a but it's a big part, right? So most of us that run businesses are parents as well, and it is probably one of the biggest talked-about things is juggling them, and and then you know, especially in females in business, there's the guilt between the two. Um but you know, the that whole village to Razum, how many children are getting ready at your house tonight? Uh there's quite a few teenage girls. But that's that support network, and I think it's something that we need to be comfortable in doing. You have to ask for help. If if there's one thing that I find in any of the sectors I work in, is that people still aren't comfortable asking for help. They see it as some kind of sign of failure, or I should be able to do this on my own, or you're not supposed to. It's not, we're not designed like that. You know, something I'd I'd just the word outsource and it's just not sitting right. It's it's such a shit word really to use for it. It's it's it should be like, I don't know, you really just help, it's helping. Asking for help, receiving help, sharing the load, making the making the organization you work for understand by being that squeaky wheel and going, I have kids on that day. I'm going to like if you can, and if you can do it, do it for the women who can't, or do it for the men who can't. I can, so I do, right? I I'm like sports day. Like, yes, I'm not missing, you know, and my my employer are so supportive around that. I know not everyone has that, but if you do, then push it. And then ask for help. You know, I I remember once I couldn't ask for help in my when I was a new mum. I felt like an absolute failure. I was struggling with postnatal depression, I had no parents, I didn't have any friends with young kids because I was older. And I remember the day I asked for help for the first time, and I tell this story a lot to the women I work with who aren't who were too scared to ask for help. And I remember being so sick, I was so sick. My daughter was like three, and I was I was on the couch and thinking, I'm I'm actually dying, I'm I cannot move. She was hungry, I had stuff to do, and I was I was put a post on Facebook at the time. There was no door dash or anything like that, and I remember just going, Can someone bring me groceries, please? And it killed me, and I think I actually cried writing the message. That opened up a whole new understanding for me around the power of asking for help. It was actually a friend of my ex-husband who I thought hated me who said, What do you need? I'm coming. And not only brought me the groceries, but then did the dishes, put some washing on, cleaned my cats, thing, whatever, like did all of this stuff and then said, uh, call me any time. Um, and I've just gone, I wonder why she did that. That's amazing, firstly. But then as I've gone through the years of always asking for help, like I'm the queen of asking for help now, um, and I've shown my friends how to ask for help, which is great. But if we ever feel, oh, I don't want to do that, remind ourselves that we're doing a disservice to someone who wants to help. What would you do if someone asked you for help? I would do anything. I think that that's the big thing of like I'd like I'll drop in, I think, to help my friends. You'd be hard pressed to find someone. So it's like, why do we feel it's such a burden if we if we're the one that has to ask for it when we'd give it straight away again? So reminding people of that, of saying, why would you rob someone of that feeling? And then when when our friend tells us something they were struggling with, and they we say, Why didn't you ask me? And we almost feel robbed, you know, of not being able to be there. You know, why don't you ask me for help? I'm right here. And then it feels so amazing when you help someone, so you like do it for them. Are you familiar with the term gem? Like it's uh in like resilience project and stuff like that. Something I've found amazing in talking to you today is gems. So gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. Oh, yes. The gratitude that you show to like with to everyone. You talk about someone in uni that you you worked with them, they were good, but then you had a falling out, you still talk about them with gratitude, you talk about your ex-husband with gratitude. Like I think I just think that's amazing. I think it's what a what a trait to have, and I think it probably flows through everything that you do. So I just wanted to deliver. It's incredible. A lot of people don't know. You know, we often people talk about their values because that's the value they want, but they don't actually live it. And and you are a testament to somebody that's living their true self. I I live it to the point of, you know, and I really do, and and I call myself out when I'm not as well, and I'm the first to go, I just really wasn't in alignment that day with my values. But you know, I'll go through a breakup or I'll go through something difficult, and I'm and one of you know, a couple of my friends are like, How do you get through that so quickly and and you're okay on the other end, or something went wrong and you're okay? And it's like, well, by living by living the things, I'm grateful for the experience. What did I bring to this situation? How do I process the emotion so that it's not latent in my body? How do I then um sit with that and then use my logic to come out the other end and learn from this? And I always come back to what if I chose this? Because I believe we did. So if I've chosen this, why do I choose for that person to act this way towards me on one level? Well, then there's only a gift here, and so I'm grateful for all of the pain. And someone said to me once, but if you went back, you you you wouldn't have it again. Like I would not change a thing. Besides wishing I could see my mum again, I would not change any of the trauma that I've experienced in my life because then I wouldn't know and be who I am. I wouldn't have the empathy to be able to um teach and understand and hold space with people without trying to fix them, to know that they're actually this is their learning, this is what's unraveling for their highest good. Um, and so yes, thank you. And I I base all of my pillars of well-being, which um I talk about pretty much in every course that I run, and they're seated in gratitude because it is so magnetic as well. When we're grateful for things, then more good things come our way. Today's been fantastic. Thank you so much. One thing from me before we wrap up. Dr. TIF is obviously growing, it's doing great things. What does the future look like for Dr. TIFF? Is there room for the uni still? Like what's the plan moving forward? Uh well that's very interesting. I don't know the answer to that fully. I only know what I'm planning for the next kind of few months and then see what happens. I would never have planned this, so I'm pretty big on for the floor. Um, I would love to stay with the uni. Um, I love working for the university, and I love the people I work with in the programs that we're running. We just started this year, are absolutely brilliant, and I'm loving that. So I always want some connection with the university. In terms of this, my retreats are going really great. I'm running some new programs this year around how to implement the daily practice in life. So that's um coming up. Um, I have a book coming out in November. So that's exciting. Um, and the corporate stuff is growing. So um I'm running some self-led courses um shortly, they'll be released early in the year. So I don't know, but it's it's and I like not knowing, and I just do the best I can every day in alignment with my highest values, hand a lot of it over to higher power and trust that if I'm being a good person, I'm working in alignment with why I believe I'm here, and keep my girls as my North Star, then it's gonna be good. Beautiful. It has been amazing to have you on and yeah, enlightening. One we had last on our last podcast with Richard. We and I think he had Gary Plair and and uh Gordon Ramsay were his two celebrities. You said you worked in media. Who are who are the most famous people you've met, or what's the best meeting you've had on the spot? I I met the CEO of Westpac, that was pretty impressive. Um I've met a few of them now, but that no one cares. I mean you're talking to finance workers, right? I really like Helen Lynch, I met Helen Lynch, they're all Westpac people. I guess people in Australia that you'd consider to be famous. I've met, you know, I've had a conversation with Mia Freeman, I've met Eddie McGuire briefly, I've had some radio personalities and I've met the, you know, some Westpac CEOs, but I don't, they don't, they haven't, nothing's really connected with me like one particular leader, and that was Helen Lynch. She was um one of the first female leaders of Westpac, and she is she personifies everything that I aim to be. She is graceful, she is powerful, she's um humble, she is kind, she is uh connect, she's genuine. And when I say connected, I mean when she meets you, she knows who you are and she genuinely wants to hear what you have to say. She is someone that I aspire to be like, and uh she walked in the room, and before I even had a conversation with her, I was blown away. And I don't think many people would know her name, but she's a beautiful soul. Beautiful, love it. Nice. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. That's funny.