BEING with Sally Wilson

Charles Crawford has written and contributed to speeches for British Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, the British Royal Family and foreign dignitaries as well as composing and delivering his own speeches during his diplomatic career. He was described as “the Dale Carnegie of speechwriting” by John O’Sullivan, former speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher. You could say, he knows a thing or two about preparing and delivering speeches for leaders!

With wit, passion, endearing impatience and disruptive honesty, Charles shares with us what makes speeches great, and what makes speeches for leaders great. Whether we’re speaking at a wedding, conference, online powerpoint presentation or at gatherings of global decision-makers, Charles prompts us to ask ourselves questions like:

How good do I really want to be?

Am I prepared to make myself ‘big’?

Am I prepared to let go and risk being different and standing out?

He’s a man of standards, passionately and emphatically advocating excellence with no excuses.

We can all benefit from hearing this!

www.charlescrawford.biz

Twitter @charlescrawford

Lesley Williams has an extraordinary knack of making you feel welcomed into her life, her presence, her story, into our shared history and making you feel like you belong – the opposite of her experience growing up under the control and monitoring of the QLD government under their ‘protection’ acts.

In this episode Lesley talks about life under the protection acts, which led her to her quest for justice and acknowledgement of the contribution of our indigenous people in building Queensland’s agricultural sector. Indigenous people were trained as domestic servants or farm hands, sent out to work on stations, and didn’t receive the wages they were entitled to.

Both her book, “Not Just Black and White”, which Lesley co-authored with her daughter, Tammy, and the conversation we have in this episode draw you in to her story as an indigenous woman, widow and single mother, as a woman who found self-belief along the way and now open-heartedly invites us all to “move forward together”, embracing our shared history.

www.notjustblackandwhite.com.au

Fabiola Campbell describes her loss of identity and sense of belonging, when she migrated from Venezuela to Australia, as the “death of her superwoman”.  In a very different way to what she’d expected, she discovered her adult identity through the experience of being an immigrant. The process was rocky, at times humiliating, sometimes devastating, but ultimately became a journey of transformation where she was able to recreate herself and reawaken her "superwoman".

In this episode, Fabiola gives insights invaluable to those living in a melting pot country and heartfelt, down to earth advice for other Australian immigrants. She is the Founder of Professional Migrant Women, where she works now with other professional immigrant women in Australia, helping them negotiate their way to a sense of belonging.

www.professionalmigrantwomen.com.au 

August 2009 Katherine Varley’s car spun out of control, hitting a tree and leaving her with a serious brain injury. She was in her 30’s. She has little memory of that time and the first stages of her rehabilitation process, but she had to relearn how to eat, how to walk, talk… All those capabilities most of us take for granted every day.

Katherine has been a “success story”, you could say. She now leads a relatively normal life which, 10 years ago, she never would have thought possible. She’s also developed an app to help other people going through rehab, and has been nominated for a Community Achievement Award for regional Victoria.

She speaks of her struggles, her darkest times, what kept her going and what she believes has finally led her to a life of normality. Katherine speaks with honesty and realism – rehab is hard. Very hard. And it’s also extremely difficult for carers. But she also speaks of hope, regaining independence and the joys that come after the pain and struggles.

www.prepareme.com.au

Giving ourselves time and space is something many of us struggle with in our society. When was the last time you allowed yourself to do nothing – not reading, not watching TV, not chatting to a friend or checking social media – Nothing?...

Yeah, I thought so!

Holistic health and movement coach, Ross De Vincentiis and I, discuss the importance of creating mental space, why most of us struggle with it, and how to do it! We speak of our own experiences and those of our clients both when we’ve failed to give ourselves stillness as well as the surprising, wonderful things that have happened when we have.

Better health, stronger immune system, increased clarity and creativity, more energy… Effects are astounding. Why on earth not?

www.rossfit.com.au

Matthew Boyd strives every day to use his career to create positive impact in this world. 5 years ago he decided to quit his marketing job and founded Vollie, an online marketplace that’s unlocking a new style of skills-based remote volunteering. In 4 years of operation, Vollie has seen 4,000+ social impact projects completed to date, through 200,000+ skilled volunteering hours, generating over $5 million of savings to the current 925+ non-profits using the service. It’s exciting stuff!

In this episode Matt addresses the warts and all truth of starting a social impact enterprise, the ups and downs and the formation of his drive to help and make a difference. He talks about the Age of Purpose in the business world and his personal journey through lack of satisfaction and fulfilment in his career, to volunteering, and which ultimately led to Vollie. He’s down-to-earth, realistic, pragmatic and very open about the struggles and the joys of this path.

His parting words: It’s better to live with failure than with regret.

www.vollie.com.au

Linda Deverell walked an extraordinary journey with her partner when, diagnosed critically ill and with 2-3 months to live, he decided to take the route of voluntary assisted dying. At the time Linda hadn’t realized that in helping him with this she was breaking the law, but insists emphatically that she’d have done the same even if she had. Since this intense, heart-breaking yet life-affirming personal experience Linda has become a staunch advocate and campaigner for voluntary assisted dying to be a choice for terminally ill people.

In this episode Linda shares her journey with exceptional openness, compassion and frankness, giving us an intimate view through a very personal window into one man’s process of dying, her role as his supporter and carer, the choices we have and don’t have, the most difficult things and the ‘magic’ of living that precious three months in the present moment, where nothing else really existed but her and him.

https://www.gogentleaustralia.org.au/

https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/

Dog-eat-dog Darwinism is questioned and a win-win future is offered here, with both optimism and realism. It’s an exciting ride… 

Donna Eiby has had a career in the military, worked on billion dollar projects, has a number of undergraduate and graduate degrees and a PhD with a research focus on the intention of employers to train their workforce in what she calls “uniquely human skills”.

With education underpinning her life, Donna’s deep understanding of the value of the skills which make us human arises not only from her personal experience as her own “case study”, but also through rigorous research. She explores the value of these learnable skills and busts their accompanying myths both in the context of our success as individuals, as well as in today’s world of business and human capital.

In this episode Donna addresses how the Industrial Revolution caused us to see humans as a commodity, iPods and the role individualism plays in our sense of disconnection and the importance of developing the skills which make us human, including empathy and social intelligence.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-patricia-ann-eiby-future-of-work/

https://www.thefutureworkskillsacademy.com/

New York-based composer, Jerome Kitzke, embodies independence and freedom of spirit in his music as in his life. In fact, his music reflects all facets of his life and what’s important to him – the beautiful, the challenging and the painful. His musical voice is free and inspired and his breath-taking hand-written scores have featured in exhibitions, inspiring through their visual as well as musical impact.

So many of us don’t even know what that hackneyed phrase, ‘be true to yourself’, means. If you have a listen to Jerome’s interview you might just get a sense of it, as well as a sense of some of the gifted and sensitive people who encouraged his originality along the way.

peermusicclassical.com/composers/12371

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Kitzke 

Ever been told that PTSD can’t be resolved? Steve Gardiner is living proof that that’s simply not true.

Steve was conscripted into the army in Zimbabwe as a medic and his experience there led to post-traumatic stress – though at that time it didn’t have a name.

Here he talks about what it’s like to have PTS – the anger, guilt, hypervigilance, flashbacks and resultant exhaustion. He also talks about how he resolved it, and advice he would give both to people living with PTS as well as to their family and friends.

Steve now specialises in helping others resolve PTS, anxiety and depression.

https://www.transformyou.com.au/