From 'Unemployable' to Unstoppable with Sarah Sydir

Today we're joined by the absolute legend Sarah Sydir, who turned being "unemployable" into a massive f*ck you to the system by building not one, but TWO successful businesses supporting people with disabilities to become their own boss. Sarah keeps it real about juggling work and life, why traditional employment can get in the bin, and her kick-ass vision for creating workspaces that actually work for people with disabilities. Sarah's energy is infectious as hell and we're pretty sure you're going to be as obsessed with her as we are!

Number of fucks given in this episode: 27

Mentioned in this episode:

• Sarah's new business: My Power Foundations

• The Right Coordination

• Hire people with disabilities through Hire Up and Mable

Transcript

Rah: Welcome to fuck around and find out a podcast for finding your way through owning your own business. My name is Ra. I'm Chris. And I'm Emily, and we are going to continue what we started last. I was going to say semester, but last season of students, yes. Talking about interesting, weird facts and M I know you've been brainstorming.

Do you want to start hus off? What's your,

Emily: um, I had to like list what things people might find interesting about me. It's not a lot. Yeah. Yikes. Um, as well as my Harry Potter nerd, which I have already mentioned, I'm also a super Marvel nerd, like hardcore Marvel nerd.

Rah: Yeah, you are

Emily: too. I'm a, yeah, like love it.

Like I love a good universe that's been created with character consistency and storylines that translate. Is Marvel Superman or Spider Man? Sorry. DC. DC.

Rah: Superman, yes. Superman, no. But Spider Man is Marvel.

Emily: Okay. So Marvel is obviously, um, Spider Man, Iron Man, The Avengers, Captain America, Thor, Scarlet Witch, all of them.

Yep, yep, yep. DC is a very different universe. Okay. DC is I don't like it, isn't it? It's nuts. Like, I'll watch it, but I don't like it. It's hot. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Um, Marvel have done a fucking good job of Disney pulling their movies together, which is why I like it so much better, because there's so much consistency through what they do.

They've created an empire out of these movies. And then I've gone, a person that's like watched them as they've come out, and then I've gone and gone, actually I'm going to watch these chronologically as well, and then watch them in the right sequence, and then I go through phases of like, I'm a hardcore.

Ah, so you're, yeah, okay. And then I watch all the TV series as they're connected back into the, into the movie, and, Like hardcore. I love it. I will tell you the intricate detail of all of it.

Rah: And I just want to point out though that you are not hardcore enough that you named a child after a character in the Marvel Universe.

Nah, Harry Potter still

Emily: wins. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I mean, I had also had my children. That kind of helped. But I couldn't really call, although I think my son is utterly gutted I didn't call him Peter Parker. Very, very convinced that

Christine: he's my son. He can change his name. Or be known as. Will Peter Parker in future years if he wants to?

Did you know,

Rah: I learnt this on the radio because I was listening to Talkback Radio this week, they're changing the rules that you can only change your name for non marriage divorce reasons three times in your life. So just because you feel like it, they're changing the rules that you can only change it three times in your life.

That's interesting.

Emily: I mean, I can't imagine one time I'd want to do that.

Rah: But I'm guessing that means they have enough people who just, you know, Decide that I'm going to change the name and then Try and get it changed. I know a

Christine: few people who you know, so say for example, uh, Christine Longworth, but you can call me Sasha.

And I know a few people who are like that. Sure thing, Beyonce. Yes. I think we have someone in here right

Emily: now that fits that profile. Who me?

Rah: Yep. It's all right. I've just registered my name as a business name. I haven't changed it with Hatchmatch to Dispatched yet. Oh God, am I showing my age? Birthdays and marriages.

Christine: Yes. I got a girlfriend who, um, when she got married, similar time to me, um, never changed her name because there were 52 things she needed to change her name on for. It's such a feature. And she said her husband was willing to do all 52, which of course is impossible for someone to do it for you. So she, um, yeah.

Yep, she is who she is and has always been. My child's changed

Sarah: their name, um, through school and a type of education, but not legally yet. Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah, okay.

Emily: It's just such an effort to do, like, it's hard enough to do it when you get married, but I can't imagine doing it three times in a row.

Rah: I quite like Um, having Laura as my name that's only known on my passport.

Now I'm sharing it with everybody, but you know, that's my name right now at this very moment. I made me a lot of fun. I found out. I was like,

Sarah: what?

Rah: Never tell my mother that I'm not known for the name that she gave me. She would have kittens. Um, but yeah, it's the name I call myself and have been for the last 15, 20 years.

So, you know, so over the last 10 years. It's been 10, 12 years now since I've been known professionally as Rah, um, but I quite like that. There's that differentiation of like my bank accounts are Laura Passport. Everything's personal, but everything I put out publicly for the most part is Rah. There's an element of privacy to that, which is, I think, needed.

I'm

Emily: not mad about it. No. Well, you look at the performers that do it, like Pink, and like everyone obviously knows who they're real name now, but it's a nice way to kind of. I used to work boundary, maintain some

Sarah: level of, and the nim,

Rah: it always has been. And we're sober and we're struggling. I used to work

Emily: at a hotel millions of years ago and we get a lot of celebrities come through because it was one of the main ones in Harbor, which is what I gonna use my fun.

That's next

Rah: episodes

Emily: thrown out now.

Rah: Yeah.

Emily: Um. The people that didn't have known, like, their real names known, the best people to have stayed, like, when you stay at a hotel from a celebrity perspective, because people didn't know what their real names were. So when you call a hotel and ask to speak to someone, you have to, like, make sure you know the full name and whatever else.

But if people don't know who these guys names are, these people's names are, you're not going to get accidentally people put, I want to call to Pink. Let me talk to Pink. Like, no. Oh, that's not right. That's right. It's Mrs. Flintstone to you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. And the ones that were really known, like we had Benji Madden and Joel Madden stay.

Oh, yeah. And they, it's obviously their names, they don't have a pseudonym, so they stayed, but they cleverly swapped the first initial of the first name and the surname. you know, system. So if you typed in Benjimatta, nothing would come. Yeah, right. So it wouldn't actually, so people weren't able to, like the staff weren't able to accidentally.

Yeah. Right. Aside from the fact that walking around the hotel, they're fucking identical. Yeah. And

Rah: they've got tattoos and.

Emily: Yeah. They're lovely. Yeah. They walked past and I was like, Oh my God, they're like, Hey. I was like,

there's

Rah: so many stories from that place. I'll tell one next time. Okay. There's, there's a hook for the next episode. So, Christine, what's your little, my weird fact for today? Show us your weird bits.

Christine: Okay. Well, you know, for as much as I prefer a documentary and a movie based on real facts. And I love a good autobiography.

I have a bit of a secret passion for werewolf fiction. I like how you say fiction. I think we know werewolf fiction. I'm not a fan. It's a piece of shit all. Sorry.

Emily: At I'm a Buffy van. Buffy the van. Buffy and Angel. Absolutely. They don't fucking Twinkle Werewolves.

Christine: Werewolf. Um, werewolf Fiction. Yes. Okay. Have you watched True Blood?

Um, yes. I just finished. I'm just rewatching it. I have. Excellent. Uh, yes. But yes. No, I do. I do like it. I think I like that. Well, besides the fact that in my mind from reading my werewolf fiction, all the men are just bloody hot. Um and everything. Um I just like that everyone has your back. Village mentality, pack, that pack, that solid, that solid foundation, loyalty.

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah,

Emily: the intense loyalty in the family is blood and always blood in there. Yes. Also the concept of the mate bond as well. Oh yeah. You get that. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know why a lot of women would be interested in something like that. Because we've never

Rah: experienced it in our lives.

Yeah, no. Yes. Does that mean you've watched a TV series called Being Human? Didn't you? A British TV series? No,

Christine: I haven't

Rah: actually. I have to look it up to make sure I have the name right. I'll send you the link.

Christine: Yeah, do, because I feel like I haven't heard of it. Because often I find, because, you know, in a book, for example, you imagine and picture, and so if you see something that's been put into a film or TV show, it's not what you visualized if they don't get the casting right.

Yep. I haven't come across a lot of. Because that's why I say I'm not Twilight, because the whole werewolf theme and the fake stuff, it's just, you know, it's not what I'm visualizing. Some little pincy little boy. Yeah, yeah.

Emily: I'm sorry, Joe Magnoliello or whatever the fuck, however you say his name. Now he's a werewolf.

That's what a werewolf would be. Yeah. Yeah.

Rah: That guy's lit. Oh yeah. But the thing that I liked about watching Being Human was it was British. So it had that sort of British humor to it. They do it well. I love when you think British. I do. Um, but it's, so I've just had to look it up on IDMDB. So the tagline is a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost try to live together and get along.

So the setting

Rah: is the three of them are housemates basically. And then they try to live and exist, but then also obviously. Every full moon, the werewolf has to go out into the forest and be himself. And then there's the vampire who can't go out during the day and all of that. So it's all about sort of in the real world, but British.

Oh, I think

Christine: I will be probably looking at that because second to werewolf is vampire. So well, then if you're into vampires,

Rah: um, what we do in the shadows. Oh, yes. Very funny.

Emily: Isn't, um, uh, uh, Takiwawa, right? Yeah, like Taka Waititi created it. Yeah. So there was the movie.

Rah: Yeah, there was the movie that I think he was in.

Yeah. But then there's also the TV series, and it is, um, Takiwawa. Peace your pants funny. Okay. So there's my little hot tip. All right.

Christine: Excellent. So I've got some TV watching I'll send you a to

Rah: do list. Thanks, babe. Thanks. And then I'm gonna try and keep my weird thing short But it involves both of you. Ooh, and that is God Here we go.

It's not a threesome. Oh, okay. Sorry, guys. Um, it's not a conversation

Emily: for that one,

Rah: so

Emily: I'm gonna hold all my comments.

Rah: We'll put that on, we'll put OnlyFans. Um, I took both of you to see Hamilton. Yes, you did. And you lived to tell

Christine: the tale. Yes, we have. I think my words at the end of the evening was, I could see myself buying the soundtrack.

And listening to it on a road trip.

Rah: And that's the ultimate compliment for me, because I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's obviously a big cup of tea for me.

Emily: Yeah. But yeah. Why do you love it so much? I like La Passion that was oozing out of you last night. Oh my god, people, listen. I was like a kid.

I was dipping a left ear. It was next level and I was like really fascinated by, like it's a really good show. There's a lot in it

Rah: though, isn't there? Oh my gosh. It is,

Emily: it's a lot. Like you kind of have to really process through it and think about it and I want to look some stuff up still.

Rah: Yep.

Emily: But what about it brings you so much passion and joy?

Rah: What got me originally was that it's the music is just so different because it's got the hip hop, the rap, it's got a bit of folk, it's got the banjo in it, shout out to Kooky from the band who does the Um, I think

Christine: we

Rah: had

Christine: a bit of soprano, which is not my

Rah: favorite,

Christine: but because it was only a small portion of the whole thing that I coped.

Rah: Minimum doses. Yes. Um, all of the different facets of it. So I was first hooked by the music and how different it was to traditional musical cause I'm a musicals girl. First musical I saw as a kid was the best little whorehouse in Texas. Lord have mercy on us all. No one else knows that song. That's fine.

Great. Dolly Parton movie with Burt Reynolds. Well worth watching. Yeah. Okay. Um, so yeah, so musicals are my jam. Yeah. So with Hamilton a being a musical, but, and it was getting this groundswell overseas in, um, New York, just going, everyone's fucking obsessed with this thing, so then got into it. And so it was obviously the music and how different it is then started paying attention to the music.

No, sorry, to the lyrics and things like, like there were things even that we heard when we saw the show. That I hadn't picked up on, like where the patterns are, because the guy who wrote it who I know you're a fan of Shakespeare, they refer to the guy who wrote it, Lin Manuel Miranda, as modern Shakespeare because he's able to play with the words so beautifully.

Christine: Um, you know what, as a fan of Shakespeare, that was actually something that ran through last night because I was trying to pick up some of the they mentioned Macbeth as well. Yeah, oh they did, they did. I picked that one up.

Rah: Scottish, but even the whole Scottish tragedy without having to name the play. So they never named the play.

They just mentioned the character. Yeah. But they said, but that's the character name and that's okay to say on stage. You cannot say in the theater, the name of the play because that's cursed.

Emily: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I just got off. This is my generation, right? Yeah. There was a Simpsons episode. With um, Sir Ian McKellen, who obviously has acted in Macbeth, and well, I mean, I know him more from X Men.

Of course. Hasn't he been on the Simpsons? Or was that just Patrick Stewart? His character's been on a few, and yeah, he plays himself in this episode, and they see him outside of theatre, and. They keep saying the name of the show and he keeps getting struck by lighting.

Rah: But so Lin Manuel Miranda, the guy who wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, and then performed it for the first year on Broadway, he Um, not just does like two lines that rhyme or a whole song that all rhymes, he puts a rhyme in, in the middle of each of those lines as well. Um, or put in references to like you picked up on Gilbert and Sullivan references.

You know, there's rappers in there, there's like Nas, who I'm not really into, but there's like all these little references, then obviously Shakespeare, that kind of thing. And then he pulls in quotes, like he actually used some of George Washington's, uh, quotes Speech in it as well, that kind of thing. But then once.

I finally saw it in real life. I saw it twice in London, about three years before it came to Australia, and then was obsessed with the staging of it. So there was the lighting, the choreography, because it's so detailed and nuanced that even last night I learned something new, like picked up on different things.

Because based on where you sit. You see, so where we were sitting, cause I've got us the producer seats at the back. Oh, they were lovely people. Which, open to the public, let's be clear, I was not being special, like, they were for sale. No, but I felt special. They were very special. Yeah. Like,

Emily: smack on, centred.

Rah: Yeah. But from back there, that's the first time in a long time that I've noticed the way that they changed the lights. They're talking about, um, British General Howe's got troops on the water, and they're talking about how the troops are coming, like they're, they're coming into New York and Yeah. Like Britain's bringing more, more people coming.

And the lights are showing, like, they're showing the water, the blue, shimmering blue water. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that was impressive. Which you don't, I don't notice as much when I've sat closer, that kind of thing. But then the choreography, like the last time I saw it a month ago, I noticed that George Washington salutes the wives.

They're not technically in the scene. They're at the back sort of observing because there's a whole lot of, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the women are saluting back holding up their letters, which is how they support the men. Yep. Because they write the letters to their husbands. Yeah. Yeah. But he salutes them with his hat and then they salute with the letters and they put their hands up and I was like, oh, I'm getting chills to talk about that now.

And all these little bits of choreography and then because

Emily: Why did you never go into musical theatre? There you go. No, but like if you, the intricate detail of this is obviously what's getting me so excited. I was

Rah: in a

Emily: band once, that's

Rah: enough. One time at band camp? One time at band camp. I was a backup singer

Emily: once for three songs.

Um, but you obviously love all this stuff. There's more to it than actually, um, performing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris's son does a whole bunch of, he's really good, I mean he performs, but he's also doing all the stage setups and the intricacy behind it. Why

Rah: not just try and get a job doing the social media for them instead?

Oh, that's an idea! She says, winking at the camera. Um, yeah. Hire me. But then also, um, what I've been able to do is pull that love of it. And the way that I, the reason I set up my Facebook group when I set it up eight years ago, um, was so that I could ensure that it got a supportive community when it did open here.

Yes. Um, because I knew what could go wrong because I ran a fan community in the early forum days back in 1999 and saw what a shit show it was and knew I didn't want a show that I already loved so much to get that same treatment. I knew I deserved better. And so that's why I created that community. And so that's where my strength is.

Christine: Yeah, absolutely. Go with it. And I can, I

Rah: can perform it in the car, perform it on the way here, I can perform it in the shower. Amazing stuff. It's the group that you created. I love my group. It's very cool.

Christine: Yeah. No, it was, it was seriously a good night last night and, yeah, it, it was. We didn't get to

Rah: roll Jaffas down the aisle, but we did get to have our Canadian clubs and Maltesers.

That's right. Yeah.

Emily: Better than Malteser.

Rah: Caar. Best we changing we have today. So yes. Some of that might be cut out in post 'cause I told you I ramble. But , we have a guest today. We have Sarah.

Hi Sarah. Thanks. Joining us in the room where it happens, hashtag Hamilton quote. Um, oh, it's, that's right. Yes, you, oh

Sarah: yeah, absolutely. It's always a Hamilton reference. Thank you so much for coming. It's really nice to be here. It's really nice to be here instead of in the car, listening to you guys and actually seeing you live.

You can literally make a long time listener first time caller. Absolutely. It's kind of freaking me out because I feel like I'm driving in the car listening and here I am looking at you guys. You're not driving though, so you're safe. This is

Emily: much safer. Absolute chaos and a mess. Trying to get our shit together to get this going.

You feel welcome. Good. And sharing

Rah: the behind the scenes where one microphone isn't here, so poor Chris is having to. Compromising. Yeah. You know, we've got the plan B, we just do what we got to do.

Christine: Absolutely.

Rah: Yeah, exactly. It's all good. Yeah. So tell us your elevator pitch of who you are, what you do. No pressure.

Sarah: I'm just going to start. Okay. Well, hi, my name is Sarah and. I'm unemployable. I am an unemployable person. I am an unemployable person. I saw that on your LinkedIn bio and I loved it. I am completely unemployable. There's nothing about me that's really effective for employers, um, which is why for the last seven years I've been self employed and why I've created a business around being self employed.

And why I support people with a disability to become self employed as well. So yeah, pretty unemployable person. I have a lot of experience. I have a lot of things I've done. I have a lot of training. But my life and my circumstances kind of have thrown a bunch of curveballs my way and have meant that I've not been able to successfully work and earn what I'm worth.

And now I've found myself sort of 47 and really for the first time in my life earning a Full time wage, um, paying my own super, putting savings away, like for the first time in my life. So amazing. Yeah, but

Emily: also like you had a hat's off to the way you massively had that resilience and been able to If you can't employ me, make your own fucking way to do it.

Not at all. Not at all. But it also talks to how fucking broken our corporate world

Sarah: is. Corporate sucks. The tragedy of all this is really that I also work in community services, so the fact that even community services and disability services were unable to support me and my family is insane. That is.

It's just so disappointing. Yeah. Yeah.

Rah: Yes. And so you've got, you've got two business names that I've

Sarah: got in my mind. I'm that girl. So even when I was little, like I had the, you know, I was selling stuff out the front and playing, um, Playing in a jazz band trying to earn money when I was like, eight, nine years old with a saxophone out the front yard and a hat out the front.

You're a real Lisa Simpson! She got a Lisa Simpson tattoo. I knew I was going to love you the moment I saw the tattoo. I never noticed. She's my girl. Is that Frida with a gun? No, no, that's Princess Leia. Yeah, yeah, it's Princess Leia. No, this is DC Universe, but there's also Wonder Woman. She's the most empowering

Christine: female superhero, so she's totally fine.

So this

Sarah: one's a work in progress, which I'm sure is wonderful for the podcast. Yeah, I can work for the audience. Yeah, we're Tattie lovers. Working on my strong, empowered female arm over this side. I love that. Love it. Oh, what was that? So yeah, so you've got the two businesses. Two businesses, yeah. So there's the Right Coordination.

There's the Right Coordination, um, which is a brand new business. It's been a work in progress for a long time, but it's, it's fairly new and up and coming. So we do support coordination under the NDIS, and we also run a program called the Visible Program, which is where we, um, have developed a program to support, train, and sustain people.

micro enterprise for people with a disability. So to help them start their own little businesses, their own business, to earn money, to have their own support system around that, because people with a disability are so underemployed. And I worked in disability employment for 10 years and I know the system is a real mess.

there and it's not very effective. There's a whole bunch of government stuff happening around that right now. But, um, because it's the only way I was able to be employed. Yeah. Um, my son has been running his own business now. My son, Rowan, is 21 years old now. Um, autism level three, ODD, ADHD, and moderate intellectual, all of the things.

He's got a good collection going on. He's significantly disabled, but he has successfully run his own business. Um, business for two years with a support representative. Amazing. And that's how that, that kind of, kind of came about. Yes. That was something that we worked on for years and, and yeah. And the other business that I work for, I'm actually, I'm not the director of it, but I'm employed, um, to run MyPower Foundations, which is a disability support service.

So we provide support to people with a disability across the country. Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury area, and it started with just one person, which was just Kylie and I came on board about six years ago nearly, and now there's 60 support workers and around a hundred families. Amazing. My goodness.

Quickly, the NDIS

Rah: space is where the NDIS

Sarah: space, it's a weird old space to be in and it's constantly changing, but it has. Well, it's significant. It changed my life in so many ways. Number one, it's what I work in, it's how I work, it's how I live. But number two, without the NDIS and somebody actually with my son right now supporting him, I wouldn't be able to work and pay taxes.

And give him

Rah: the independence that he deserves. Correct. Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. So that's how we got here.

Rah: Yeah. Wow. Amazing. Oh my gosh. I'm just trying to work out how you keep up with everything. I don't. I juggle a

Sarah: lot of things all the time. I have four children. Um, so that's another reason why I had, I really had no choice but to start my own business.

Um, so my eldest, so I've got me here who's nearly 23, and I've got Rowan who's 21. Alex, who's nearly 15, and Ellie, who's 12. Um, so, yeah, so fun. Uh, teenagers. Kids are young.

I

Sarah: had two young and then I had two, so I had two in my early 20s and two in my 30s. And what a difference that is. I also had a little divorce in the middle of that, which is why there's that big age gap in between.

Just a little. Speaking of having to change your name and all the paperwork. Just a little. Just a little. I love that. So good. It's a good decision, but yeah, so I had kids young, but I also found that it was really difficult for me. I mean, I remember working for one company that would schedule meetings right on, like, I'm

Emily: just gonna treat you like shit because

Sarah: you're a mother.

Emily: You're

Sarah: a mother. Yeah. That was one of the things. Absolutely disgusting. When they start

Rah: using it as a dirty word.

Sarah: Yeah that's right. So that was, that was really tough. Um, and Rowan's needs being so significant and even when he was at school, so he was at school from one to three, you know, through the school years, but of course he was.

So, when he was getting transported to and from school and he actually had to have somebody over a team had to be at home for him to be picked up and dropped off even when he was 18. So, he was 18 all the way through 12. Yes. But I still had to be there when he left and when he got back. Right. So, it restricted the amount of hours I could work.

Oh my God, yeah. It restricted where I could travel to for work. So, again, if I wasn't self employed, that would have been impossible to manage as well. or it would have significantly Impacted my earning capacity because I've been working in the industry for a lot longer than when working from home actually wasn't a thing.

Yeah. And I remember begging them, begging them to let me just please don't make me sit in traffic for an hour and a half just to sit at this desk so you can watch me do what I could do at home.

Emily: It's my biggest, I get really ragey about the working from home and office thing. And I keep reading all of these trends that are telling me that.

They're actually changing it back. People are going to be forced back into the office. And I'm like, why, like, what the fuck is the point? We've all proven that we can work from home thanks to COVID. We've all shown it. And yes, okay. There's certain industries and certain occupations that you can't, cause you were people facing and you are, you know, you can't tend a bar behind, you know, from home, but.

Sarah: I just don't understand why there's that meeting. There's also a huge amount of privilege behind that. I mean, I remember having a meeting, there was a big meeting around um, You know, they were wanting to bring the Zooms, we were doing the Zoom community services meetings together. And that was great because I could attend them because I didn't have to drop the kids off at school and then get back and get dressed and then make sure I was there on time.

But also when they were saying they wanted to bring them back into the room and And myself and another person, she's like, actually, I'm in a wheelchair and for me to attend a meeting in person, I have to hire a support worker, get them to host me out of bed, get them to shower me, drive me, I have to organize transport, which comes out of my NDAs funding, all that kind of stuff, just to attend in person where I can just literally turn my camera on my phone and do the same thing.

So when people are saying go back into the room, they are not considering others. And they're not considering people with disabilities.

Emily: No. And it's, it's such a huge portion of people that you're then isolating and screwing over. And then you're taking it also back from, you know, we get to a point where like my, my experience was I had, um, my son pre COVID and then I had my daughter literally four months before COVID happened.

So with my son, my husband honestly kind of did, I mean, did stuff, but he did kind of nothing because he was working the whole time and I was on. having to juggle it all. I was trying to work part time, literally across the road from where I am now, and, um, trying to do all of the things, take interviews and vaccinations, do the doctors, be the home, be the one that gave up stuff when he was sick, because there was this mentality of, well, I'm the man, I make the more money, and so I'm the one going to work.

And that's cool. And then because of COVID, he had no choice but to be home because we were locked down with my daughter. And it was that firsthand experience of what that entails of having a brand new baby. And it's just like, it's creating that divide again, that women, uh, their careers and their aren't as important.

They're disposable. You are meant to be at home in the kitchen, but we also live in a society where you cannot afford to live without a dual income.

Sarah: Yeah, although it does also create some, in some cases, I feel like I have to do everything as well. It's like, I'm here at home working and I'll put a load of washing on.

I'll maintain a house break instead of sitting down and taking a moment. So

Rah: that's become my little trait in the middle of a busy day, is I'm going to go put the washing on. Yeah, it's erupts our life from us. When did I become so middle aged? I don't know. I did two loads of washing before coming

Christine: here today.

I was so excited. I've done

Emily: two as well. And I get really excited. I love being able to do it during the week and not have to touch it on the weekend if I don't want to. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I get a bit funny, because I'm like, no, no, I can't come and see you because my washing's not done. And

Rah: especially in winter when you can take the washing off the line before it's dark.

And then you play the, is it cold or wet game at night. I

Emily: can't hang out.

Rah: I just have to wait. I was so excited when

Emily: it started getting hot. I'm like, quick, more washing. Get rid of all the sheets, all the towels, get it on the lines.

Rah: Because

Emily: we've got the best backyard for it. But it's, um, but it's, but I hate the workplaces also use that as an excuse.

Well, you're not working from home if you're hanging and washing up. Yeah. I don't fucking know. Yeah. If I'm in the office, like, so where we are right now, Crossroads, Woolworths Group. I used to work for Woolworths Group, and they've got a supermarket inside this building. It's like, it's a fucking huge building.

And, uh, You know, the version of me washing out, hanging the washing out is like what, 15 minutes? I swear to God, when I worked there, I would spend 45 minutes fucking around in the morning. Yeah. I'd get there and be like,

Sarah: oh, my desk. Oh, I'm just going to starve. The amount of times I was having a coffee. The amount of staff lunches or birthday things or cake days.

The amount of cigarette breaks. Oh my God. I used to go with

Rah: people on their cigarette breaks. Me too. Because I got so much.

Sarah: Sick of being the only one left in the office. Me too. I was the filthy smoker at the time. Yeah, no. I was just breathing

Emily: your air. But then to me, it's like, well, hang on. Where's the balance here?

Yep. You've got a better home life balance. People are happier, their mental health is better because they're home and they can relax and they can breathe and they can do the things that they need to do and have a better life. Yeah. But Oh God, you're not doing your work. Yeah. And also like my husband, who's really, um, like he, he's pretty, I'd say he's pretty old school.

He's not, he's not really old school. He's 42, but he's not, he's got an older mentality. I think when it comes to that structure, I'm gonna ask you to give me your face. 42, poor old fella. Yeah, no, I know, poor bastard,

Rah: being old at 42. I mean, you know

Emily: how old I am, right? Yeah. Um, but, I don't, I mean, he's not old.

My favourite game is guess how old he is, because no one ever can guess it. Um, but he, he likes the office. I don't really know why, but I think it's the socialization part he likes. Yeah. But he also never takes a lunch break at home. When he's home, he's at that desk at 8. 30. He never actually gets up to go, like, to take a lunch break or anything, nothing.

He doesn't do that. He works the whole way home, the whole way through, and then he hits 5. 30 and it's like done. Yeah, so they're actually getting more out of him at home. Because when he is in the office, he does exactly that, right? He goes and he has a coffee, and he fucks around with the other guys. And yeah, they walk across the road for a while.

Yeah, he does. He'd huge shudder at the thought of it. But you know, he's just, He actually does more at home, except for now I'm like, go pick the kids up. It's your turn. You can take this, because I need to work first. Um, but like, and please tell me how they're getting more out of it. Like, getting him to the office full time would get more out of him.

It's just, it

Sarah: is crazy. So both of our businesses, so both, both, um, My Power Foundations and My Power Nation, Uh, completely off the street, so it's completely remote. Everything we do is remote. We try the overheads, right? Lowest overhead so that we have that ability to do more things that we love. Um, but it also, every single one of our facilitators that are working, our support workers that are working, have a family member with a disability, or have a disability themselves, or let their staff have a disability.

So, it's um, yeah, it's, it's a, We're really lucky to have them and we don't want to put anything, any more barriers in the way than we have to. But absolutely no reason other than to sit at home on a seat and watch them. And, and we trust the people that we hire. We hire them for that reason, to let them do their job.

I think that's it. It's

Emily: trust your people. Yep. People are not going to all take the fucking piss with you. They're not going to take the piss. You don't trust them to hire you. Yeah. Exactly. They want to, they actually, people want to have a work life balance. People want to have a life. Like trust. Are they going to do the job?

That is one of the things that really fucks me off. I've been micromanaged so many times in my life and it really, really triggers me because it's like, it's just, I will bend over backwards and give you the fucking world as long as you don't treat me like shit. It's not rocket science.

Rah: And it's also the reality of you cannot give 100 percent all the time.

Emily: You're working. And that's the thing. Life happens. And, you know, things, I was a bit triggered earlier today by some stuff that's kind of along these lines and was like, I can't tell you if things happen and spiral out of control because I wasn't planning them. You know, if stuff hits me all of a sudden, don't get shitty at me because I didn't tell you.

How was I supposed to figure out how to pick up the phone and be like, by the way, my world's falling apart right now. Like, yeah, like I'm trying to deal with it all in that moment. Yeah. And I wasn't able to prioritize what needed me to prioritize because I was juggling a whole bunch of them as well. I do get very annoyed when people get like, Oh, well, you know.

I've got this and this and this going on. So my world is like, oh, hang on, we all have stuff. Everyone's got stuff. Everyone's got something.

Christine: Yeah, and I read somewhere, um, you know, that thing, you know, how you're doing? Oh, I'm busy. And it's like, it's people have to stop saying I'm busy.

Yeah.

Christine: Because everybody is busy.

Everybody is juggling something. And only your busy is more important than mine. To you. Yes. That kind of thing. And so, you know, we've gotta come up with other things to describe our lives or, uh, you know, to say to actors the how are you kind of, um, comment because yeah, everyone's got lots of challenges.

And, and, and we've talked before, you know, that whole, the inflexibility of the workspace and it's not just about whether you have got children, but there's the multi-generational piece. It's, it's partners with illnesses, it's. I'm at the age now,

Sarah: yeah, so I've got teenagers. And I've got aging parents. My husband had a heart attack last year unexpectedly.

He was only 42. Um, and that's because he doesn't take care of himself, and that's a whole other story. But, you know, there's a lot of things happen all the time. Unexpected shit. Life happens every day. You can't factor it in. You can't factor it in. But, I think, you know, The biggest thing for me is, is being self employed means that no one can fire me now for that shit, you know, and nobody can say, um, you know, blame me or take that away from me.

If I need to lie down because I'm in too much pain, but I can still work from there, no one can stop me. I can do that by myself and that's fine. If I need to work from 6 10 p. m. because the morning was really terrible with the kids, um, You know, then I can do that. And nobody can say, no, Sarah, you must be between one and five.

And that's the end of that. You know, like it's, it's been life changing for me. It's true. And I often have

Christine: to remind myself with some of the work that I do in our business. And, you know, we might have a set number of, hours per week that we, I need to fulfill some, um, work for a client, for example, but it nowhere does it say that I'm doing it between the hours of nine and five or, you know, for me, I know that, well, I'm not going to make a phone call to a client at seven o'clock at night because actually it's not about them.

I don't want people to know that. I, you know, that's, you know, I've got loose boundaries or something. So you pick and choose what you do. But because we have our own businesses, so we can pick and choose when we do stuff. So, yeah, I'll deliver ABC to you, but I'm not delivering it between these specific hours because, yeah, life happens or, you know, in business, we all have to engage with.

Prospects, new clients, and sometimes you've got to deal with it and do that work at that time and slightly push aside the other things that you were going to do, um, because you need to progress that.

Emily: And also, like, everyone's got constant competing priorities. And also, when you're in business as well, like, they flex differently.

And. To different intensities, but when, like, I've got my daughter who I think is having a nap on the couch, she's in podcast ready, um, over there, it's amazing, um, Yep, she's definitely asleep. She's definitely out cold. Um, just like you have kids, like it's school holidays at the moment, Juggling kids and trying to cart them around the place and deal with them and then deal with phone calls and then deal with people pinging you all the time and I'm finding I'm getting really, I get quite a bit of anxiety around my notifications.

I find that's becoming a bit of a problem for me. But it's also like this constant, well, I need you to be on things. And it's like, well, I am on things, but you also like, just like you do, we all have multiple things going on at one time. And it's just, Taking that pressure off. There's no money in the world that would let you go back into corporate world.

Like the freedom

Emily: that comes from not having to be accountable to someone else is life changing. It just, it can't, it

Sarah: can't. Don't hold back. You really, really value

Emily: that. I, like, fundamentally have issues with people who, You cannot be made to feel guilty for having a shit day. Sometimes things just don't work and you can't like, and I don't like the fact that we're so trained as a society to make ourselves feel so guilty for not doing what we're expected to do.

And also to

Sarah: put ourselves in a position where we're going to be worse off than we do. So like, I mean, I have a physical disability, which is degenerative, and some days are really good, and other days I can't walk properly, and eventually I'll need a wheelchair, but not today. Um, I also have bipolar, so my mental health is a priority for me, it has to be, or I can't function as a mother, as a, as a wife, as an employee.

Um, so I have, if I need a break, I need to take a break. If I need to go to an appointment with my psychologist, I have to go. I have to prioritize that. And the fact that workplaces won't allow you to prioritise is actually really irresponsible. It's so irresponsible. It

Christine: really, um, fucks around with that junior care thing.

It does. I know that

Emily: we burn people out and then just see them on the way. Yeah. Wait till they decide to quit. Yeah. And then instead of replace them, just pile on some more.

Rah: Yeah. And like, I know it would be tricky slash difficult for them to learn how to be more responsible. Flexible and transparent and all those sorts of things and accommodating.

It's

Sarah: actually not

Rah: that

Sarah: hard. It's actually not that hard. I mean, we are looking at our staff that we have. We have, I believe, 60 employees through my management. Yes. And we did a poll and I think we worked out like, uh, 27 percent of our staff have a disability. Yep. And over 80 percent of our staff are carers.

So we, um, which was like huge compared to their, you know, their statistics for the state, for the country. But we, we make our, our staff tell us what hours they can work. And because they're casual. And so we're not going to push them to work with a client that they can't work with after hours. Because why would we do that to a carer?

Who needs to be home and not burning up for failure with

Christine: that. You

Sarah: are. Yeah. So the NDIS is a huge big world and there's lots of work around and you can just as easily walk to another place and do that job there. So we take really good care of the staff. Um, and we, we let them have that flexibility and we let them pick and choose the, the areas and type of participants that they want to work with.

Um, and which is why. It's

Emily: not that

Sarah: hard is it? It's not that hard. It's just, it's actually not that hard. It's really just, you just got to ask them, listen to them and do something. Exactly. The reason that we have it's hard is I suppose if you're looking at tradition, I mean, if you're a bloke with a wife at home who's taking care of the kids and getting them to their doctor's appointment and their psych appointment and then going to all of the school things and you're able to sit through at a desk from nine to seven and go out for drinks, sure, you can have that expectation of everybody else, but one other woman that can do that, you know, that's just because it's still set up.

For the patriarchy. Restate. Yeah. Still set up for that entirely about that. Yeah. The privilege of men, not for women or disabled people. Yep. Yeah. Okay. That's my ring .

Rah: It's just, uh,

Emily: makes my blood work.

Rah: And it wasn't even that hard of a rant. No, no.

Emily: I've

Rah: done worse. We'll save that for next time. Yeah. So I've got a more systems question for you.

So you've got your 60 people. Yes. 60 headcount. Um, but no office,

Sarah: no office, no.

Rah: So how do you maintain communication individually and as a

Sarah: team? Entirely on my phone. I actually, my phone is always on silent because it would never stop buzzing. So we use WhatsApp for our communication predominantly, um, which means that I'm currently in about 200 WhatsApp chats.

Um, each of our clients has their own individual chat. And each of the participants and, oh sorry, each of the support workers are in those chats individually. Um, I oversee a lot, me, not just me, the director, Kylie, and all of the facilitators overseeing the work. But it's actually kind of amazing because rather than trying to chase each other down via phone and email, we can have instant responses.

So somebody can say, Oh, I'm with so and so, they're having a really bad day. Um, one of the other support workers will jump in and say, Oh, I tried this yesterday and this worked. Cool, done. And it's instant. It's instant. You can have an instant response. Um, people will jump in sometimes before I'm even on at seven in the morning and say, Oh, some of my kids have been vomiting all night.

Is anyone up? And is anyone free to take my shift tomorrow? And often they'll have replaced each other before I even get out of bed. Um, so it's nice. We, we encourage that communication, um, as much as possible through there. So we've got an instant, and we've got a record of it. But we also, of course, have our platforms and systems as well, ShiftCare and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, right, okay. Um, that, that gives the, you know, the early warning, in terms of the boxes in terms of compliance. Yep. Um, but for general day to day communication, WhatsApp is there for the most

Rah: part. Yeah, okay. And, and so as a team, or as in like, small sections of teams or departments like maybe not the entire crew but like in sections.

We do have one for the entire

Sarah: crew as well it's called Support for Support Workers and very often there will be barbecues in there and there will be other information, there's a big traffic jam at so and so just go this way they do communicate a lot through there. That's great. Um, and just sort of share general football information will pop up and things like that and that's more of a fun chat where they can connect.

but we also try really hard to connect. In person a couple of times a year, you know, every quarter have a a picnic at the park with our families or go and have a drink at the pub or whatever it may be just to connect in person. We also have a team Zoom that's not compulsory. Once a month we say look from 7 I've got it tightened down to a nice 30 minute let's see each other's faces kind of thing and get back to our lives just to check in and connect you know as much as we can.

Yeah and that has gotten more difficult as we've grown but I think we've still kept that community Yep and at the moment we are really trying to Rather than growing to maintain and set down some really strong foundations. So we don't

Christine: ever lose that. Yes. And that's seriously important. Cause you know, things can get away from them really quickly.

Yeah. And.

Rah: Oh, there was a perimenopause pause. Has it happened yet? No. So, when we're recording this. The assembly on the ABC has just recently finished, which was the interview series by students, um, who have autism, who have gone through their, through Macquarie Uni, gone through their journalism course, etc. And I think that's been a really positive, um, story of bringing people with autism, sort of, into a bigger sphere and showing how employable they are.

Oh my

Sarah: goodness, yes.

Rah: Um, and so what I'm curious about is, which links in with your visible branch of what can people do to bring people with disabilities on as staff members either? Oh my goodness, there's so many things that like, um,

Sarah: disability employment. Or even just how hard it is, like make it less scary for the people who aren't sure.

I worked in disability and one of the programs that I ran and fostered at the time was, uh, had a group of about 26 people. People in my case, a lot of them, were all pedantism. And out of that 26, 24 of them were guys. And then there's two girls in there. Um, every single one of them wanted to be a games tester.

Of course, of course. We just sort of naturally fell into that. Um, look, it's People with autism are very, very employable. They're very loyal, um, and have an incredible amount of skills to bring into the workplace. Workplaces are just not flexible, and that's the problem. Um, I actually found, so my son has autism level 3, which means he's got a significant level of disability.

He has, um, he's fairly non verbal. He's almost non verbal. Um, he has a lot of tics and movements and noises and micolated language. But it actually makes things easier to employ. than somebody who has, say, you know, a higher, a less lower level disability. Okay. A lower visible disability. So if you have good language, and if you have good eye contact and good social skills, people have a higher expectation of you.

And they'll often think you're just rude, or you're just belligerent. Or, um, you're just stupid, where for Rowan, they'll look at him and go, Oh, I can't, he has a disability, I know I need to do AGC. And so he actually has a lot more leeway and people will look at allowances and stuff for him. So, that was the biggest thing, is that employers really aren't willing to look at allowances.

And they can only, something can only be the smallest thing. Um, so for Rowan, his options for work, Um, And he got significant NDIS funding, like 35, 000 worth of NDIS funding to look into employment when he finished school. Um, but his options, because of his level, were restricted to A, he could pack boxes in a room with a bunch of other disabled people for 3 an hour.

Or, he could go and clean tables for dogs. Or perhaps chocolate buns. All of those things he actively has. Yeah. So even just to get him to pack those boxes for work experience, we had to bribe him with chocolate and get him to put on all of his vests. Like this is not, he's, he's, he's definitely not. Yes.

Rah: But there are people who love that sort of work. There are people

Sarah: that love that, and I'm a big believer that there is a place for everybody. But to me, somebody being paid 3 an hour for work is just not acceptable. It's just not, and mostly the reason for that is so that they can keep a disability support pension, it will keep your pension, it keeps you, um, poor, it keeps you underprivileged, it keeps you, you know, it keeps you in your place.

um, so for Rowan it was a matter of finding like what do we do next we had this funding nobody, like some of the other programs that were really good wouldn't take him because he said So they said he was too disabled for the, he was too autistic for the autism programs. That was fun. Um, they forgot, didn't realise who they were talking to.

Really disrespectful, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, um, so I went and we looked, we sat down and I was sitting down with my business partner Amy for the right coordination over maybe a couple of bottles of wine. And we were talking about what, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? And for Rowan, Rowan loves collecting glass.

Rowan has collected broken glass. from across the country since he was a little boy. Like, since he's a 6 kilo man. And he's still collecting glass. Yeah, he collects broken glass. And my garage is full of it. Like, even when we moved from one house to another, we had to cart these boxes of some types of broken glass from one to another.

And he sorts them out to colours and shapes and sizes. And he always has it. Anyway, my, um, youngest got a rock tumbler for Christmas, and we tumbled the glass through so it would look like sea glass, and I remember opening it for the first time and rinsed it off and I looked and went, oh, look at it now, this is beautiful, it looks like crystal, it looks like a gem.

Um, so we took those gems, like those beautiful crystal gems, and we wrapped them with wine, and we watched some YouTube videos, and wrapped them with wine, and turned them into keychains. Anyway, so I put those, we had 20 keychains. We put them up on Facebook and they sold instantly. Like, we had them sold out before the post was even, I think, 15 minutes old.

That's awesome. So we went, oh, we better make some more. And we made some more. And they, again, sold out instantly. Wow. Which, and it just took us a while. Rowan must have loved it. Yeah, he loves money. Um, so

he

Sarah: doesn't care about business, but he loves money. He loves to be able to buy whatever he wants on Amazon.

So every time I say, we sell these and you can get Amazon. Where's my Amazon? He loves, he loves money. A man if he would, but we'll happily talk about Amazon. We'll happily talk about Amazon, DVDs on McDonalds. Got the priorities. So cool. Yeah, so that's how it started. It got out of control. Um, became too big for me to manage and talk about the other things that I was doing.

So I devised a program where I could then train someone else how to run that and manage that. So it's sustainable long term for him. So now his, that funding is supporting his support worker. His support team, they run his Shopify store. They help him now. Now he makes earrings and rings and necklaces. Um, they've done a couple of markets that have been, one of these markets, he sold 700 worth of jewellery in one day.

So it was really, it's gone, it couldn't have gone any better. Kids have more money than me. We'll all be working for Rowan soon. So we realised we were on to something. And as opposed to 3 an hour. So we started applying that program to a couple of other young people that didn't fit into the Um, we've got one young girl who's an indigenous artist, and she does press on nails, and she does the most incredible designs.

That same market, she sold 700 nails worth of press on nails. Um, she's doing her second market in a couple of weeks. But now the digital artist who doesn't want to do anything in person, but loves selling the designs on Redbubble, and, um, is making a living of an income in a way. Um, another lady who loves reiki and massage, and she wants to build a, like, do women's circles and, and, um, Yeah.

Um, she lives with mental illness. So there's lots of things that you can do in your, that you're passionate about, that you love, that nobody can put you in that box. I mean, probably, potentially, no one ever, ever could. Trying to fit this round peg in a square, round peg square hole kind of thing, or wherever it is.

Yeah. Um, yeah, so if it's not there. Make it yourself. It's always been my mentality. It's so key

Rah: to me. Yeah. I'm really just asking you questions to help me. But, when people are looking for stuff, either, you know, casual, part time, otherwise, where do people go looking to try and find people who are If they want to support people who have disabilities, rather than like looking, like putting an ad on Seek or Facebook Facebook group.

So if you

Sarah: have a disability. No, no, as in, someone like, people like us. Yeah, look, there is a lot of employment around there. Okay. It's a very casualised workforce, so that's something to be aware of. to understand before we go into it. Um, because of the funding structures and you know, the CIOs sort of linked to people's plans and people have got a plan for a year or two years.

And so often they can be very, it can be very casualised. But the, the, the industry is working on that. That's something that's coming, you know, working on more and more. But there are lots of places that you can do. You can get your ABN. If you've got your ABNs and training and some, you know, certificates behind you, first aid and the NDIS also has, um, um, The commission has some, uh, courses that you can do for free as well.

So there's an NDIS Workers orientation module where you can learn about the ndis. I I highly recommend it and do that just to see Yeah. If it's gonna be the right fit for you. Okay. Um, and you can be an independent worker. Um, you can work through platforms like higher, uh, higher up, and, um, Mabel. Um, yes.

But these, again, I'm saying all this right now, but the industry is shifting. So as of shortly, we don't have a time frame. You know what, you all need to be a registered provider. So you actually have to be registered with NDIS and pay them a bunch of money to be able to do this soon. Not yet, but soon. So that is, that is coming.

And the rules are all changing. They always meet the goal. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's. But if you just wanted to, uh, I think Mabel and Aaron are a great place to start. If you're looking to dip your toes into the industry because of their open mindedness, um, that you can actually start.

Rah: Yeah, wow.

Okay. And, what's your, like, big, um, As Em would say, big sky thinking. Like, where are you taking? What's your blue sky dream?

Sarah: I want to have, and I'm going to have, a shop front. So I want a shop front. I want like a, by consignment, shop. Like really cool, new townie looking store, where all of our participants sell their stuff.

Um, on consignment. So they can take turns at running the store, if that's what they want to do. And earn a wage doing that. And I want to bring a hands to my people. Open space in the back where people can come and collaboratively work together and use that space to, you know, work on their business for a long time.

Um, because we can do this remotely though, I am looking to do an online space for that as well. So like an online marketplace for just selling, um, products on people who have a disability. Um, So many big things. I have always had so many things that I want to do. Just, you know, I'm positive that we will, at some point, have that shop front space.

And that's a really big goal, and I think that we'll just do that very, very well. And I think it's really neat.

Rah: And I think it's something that the community can get behind as well. It's a win, win, win, win, win. Everybody

Sarah: wins.

Rah: Yeah,

Sarah: exactly. There's definitely a realm of possibility. Yeah, definitely.

Definitely, we just have to look at, we just have to keep an eye on the funding status. But they are also jumping forward and looking at it and adding more things. They're really pushing. for micro enterprise and self employment at this point, because they're recognizing that we're just literally looking at services that aren't managed in the way that they expect.

Yeah, yeah. So that's a positive. Yeah, wow, okay. Yeah, and

Rah: I'm guessing you have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy, red tape, or NDIS tape, and because, um, my bestie has an NDIS business, um, and Helping her with her business. Um, I've realized that you have to be audited every You get audited properly by the NDIS every three years, if you're registered.

So

Sarah: at this point in time today Neither of my businesses are registered NDIS businesses. Oh, so you can still do it without being following? We are set up To be registered. If we have to be registered tomorrow, it's my opposition to defiance disorder. Because at this point in time, I am never, never make me do something because there is absolutely no practical reason to me to be registered.

There is absolutely no benefit to it to me. It's obviously not hindering the business. I know you're not hindering the business at all. Most people are self managed and that means that they can use unregistered providers. And, like, people are flooding away from NDAA managed so that they can use unregistered providers because they're not getting the service and the individualised special support that they want from the registered providers.

So, soon, soon we'll have no choice. They're actually rolling that out, but it must be with the compulsory. Right. They haven't Told us yet how that's gonna look, and it's gonna be a tiered system. So depending on how big your business is, that particular type of business is what that registration will look like.

But at the moment, it's an exorbitant amount of money for no benefit was gonna say. And constant auditing.

Christine: Yeah. So it just feels like it's a money making exercise.

Sarah: I'm not going to point

Christine: fingers at the other children. No, no, no. I'm just

Sarah: going to say that. Don't say that.

Christine: That's what I'm saying. He can't now because he's stepping down.

Sarah: He can't because he's stepping down. Plus he's hot. Yes, he's hot. Um, yeah. So yeah, it's, there's no benefit to us whatsoever and it hasn't hindered our business development in any way. In fact, we've grown from strength to strength without

Rah: it. Okay, so you've got paperwork in your future. Yeah, but we are ready.

So we have all of the policies

Sarah: and procedures as if we run, we run. With the same level of, you know, self auditing and processes that a registered business would want, probably more. Um, because we, we expected that at some point they would say we have to. Um, but also it's the best practice to have these things in place.

Um, we just didn't want to pay them any money for it. No,

Christine: no, fair enough. But to have all your checks and balances and everything ready to go. Then

Sarah: it's not a complete And you can't grow without them, you need to have them. We did actually grow too fast, too quickly at first, and then had to backtrack to put in CRMs and systems.

Um, and that was a lot of hard work and a lot of lessons learned. Yeah, right, okay. A lot. So you had lots of double handling and paperwork, etc. Lots, I highly recommend it. When you, when you start. Get those things done pretty quickly and don't have to do it when we've got, you know, 50 people do it when you've got five.

Yeah, right. It's much

Rah: easier. But if you're growing faster than you can keep up with then, yeah.

Sarah: So we are business actually. While a lot of people struggle with our business, it's tripled during COVID. So, um, yeah, because a lot of people had a disability, all of groupings were closed, um, and people were just at home with no support, but we were, um, we continued to provide service in the community, so we were one of the only industries still working full time.

Wow. Okay. And straight home school for children. Oh my god. Yeah, wow. Just a few things. They watch a lot of YouTube.

Christine: Ah! Ah! Oh, you gotta do what you gotta do. It's good old YouTube. Videos without it. Absolutely. Including our little

Rah: guest who's on the couch over at the other end of the studio. She loves YouTube.

She was watching before she fell asleep. She figured out

Emily: how to get past her parent locks. Did she? Yeah, they're so clued on. They're so bad. We've got them past her in Boston. She, both of them have figured out how to do it. And we've had to change past her. Because they will remember it, they remember, they'll watch it subtly, like when you have a horror movie, they'll, they'll come in and like, Have a little bugger.

She's really, really such a smart kid. She's

a smart kid.

Sarah: I mean, she's, she's having a nap right now. And Rowan actually figured out how to, so the school he was at was SSP, which is a special sports school, which had like, all of the gates and everything was code locked and key locked and stuff. From listening to the sound, Oh! He was? But he wasn't, he wasn't an absconder.

So he would, the teachers if they had their arms full of, just open that up. I love that! He was a good egg. He wasn't going to do anything that he wouldn't normally do. But yeah. That was really clever.

Emily: The intelligence is always what I find so fascinating. Yeah. When it comes to

Sarah: autism. It's just so very specific sometimes.

Emily: Yeah. But it's, when you think about it, there is sound. The old school landline telephones had different codes, you'd do your

Rah: phone, internet banking, and they knew what numbers you were punching in, based on the sounds. Once again, showing my age. I mean, I got to the point when I was working

Emily: in Microsoft, I could tell he was walking 105 miles an hour.

Rah: Oh, same. Yep, and my level of rage would depend on the footfalls. It's weird. And how my shoulders

Christine: split. Yeah.

Rah: For

Emily: me it was chewing without their mouth.

Christine: Oh, I hate that. I

Emily: hate that. I'm a big scent person. My husband hates it because We walked out of the backyard this afternoon to hang out watching and I was like, It smells out here.

What smells? Something smells. And he's like, I can't smell anything. And then Arabella walked out and she's like, It smells like daisies. And I'm like, you're no help. Something smells. And he's like, fuck, your nose is so annoying. And I'm like, I just, I'm really, I nitpick on smell. It's really weird. I can't, I just, I smell everything.

And when I was pregnant it was so much worse because it was just that much more heightened. But like, I could, that's how I actually figured out I was pregnant with the little one. Yeah, I was actually sitting. Yeah. Yeah. Do all my K Mart cubby house pimp out when that was a whole thing. Like, do you remember when that was a trend?

Everyone was signing K Mart cubby houses and pimping it out. So I was doing that and I was painting it in the lounge room and I was literally huffing paint right underneath my, like I was sitting on the floor and it was right at my feet and I was huffing paint. All of the smell was the fucking cat poo.

From like, completely across the room in another room. And I just went, yeah, I went, Fuck. Go get

that

Emily: shit. And then, uh, I think the doctor's like, Oh, it's a penile injury. I'm like, mate, I'm telling you. I'm telling you. I can smell the cat litter. I can smell, like, my sense of smell is next level. And then when he got the results back, I was like, just over what they consider the line to be with like, whatever it is they did, the hormone.

He's like, damn, you know your body. He was like,

Rah: yeah, I could know he's man. And I was like, it's a girl.

Emily: You even knew that early? I look at my, my pregnancy story is a fun one, but did not want to be pregnant. And I knew I didn't really, I didn't actually want to have a girl. Um, I absolutely adore the fuck out of my girl now, but I, for a lot of reasons that were probably not a conversation in a day, I did not want to have a girl.

So I knew. Didn't want to be fucking pregnant. That happened. Yep. I was lucky that one time, that one month. Yep. And I never thought I'd be that person that could do it like that either. Yep. Because it took me three years to get pregnant with my son. Yeah, wow. But, um, And then I just was like, it's a fucking girl I can tell.

Like, cause I didn't want to do this in the first place. It's gonna be a girl. It's a stubborn girl who's just like, fuck you. You can't do it, just tell me. Karma's come back in the form of my cute little pigtailed girl. Um, and then when I, when I had the scan and the guy was like, Oh, yeah, I'm like 90 percent sure it's a girl.

And I was like, yeah, I know. I was like, oh, I just knew. I've got this beautiful little thing that's gonna kill my life, I'm just doing

Rah: it. Get the shotgun ready as she,

Emily: yep. I keep looking at her being like,

how

Emily: do I not damage

this relationship? You don't, darling. It's just a safe breathing moment

Sarah: where you've been taken to the therapy room.

She's just so freaking cute. That's one thing actually, one more thing that I think. I did not expect, having teenagers, I did not expect how much they knew me, still. That surprised me. I thought by now they're going to be there. Everyone's toilet trained, everyone's able to get up and feed themselves, everyone's able to watch TV, everyone's able to walk down the street and go to the shop by themselves, and I did not expect just how much they needed themselves.

Like, that really surprised me. I agree

Christine: with you there, like, there's moments where I mean, my son, he was a after school care kid in primary school and then when year six rolled around we got him out of there and he was allowed to walk home and he's been home from year six after school and then, you know, on his own type of thing.

But I find there's moments where I just have to stop and drop. everything. And it's either, look, if it's school holidays, it could just be something in the middle of the day. Sometimes I might have think, thoughts of like, Oh, It's only 10 o'clock. Maybe I might go to bed. No, that's the night he chooses to come out and have a big chat and talk and everything.

And I will never stop doing that. They only talk at night or in the car on the way to school, you know, when they're not looking. When they can't look at you. Exactly. And, um, and so you've got to take it. But that thing about them needing you, it was, I've found that quite, quite a surprise as well. Like, you know, um, you know, He can, he can cook himself some food, he can run the washing machine, you know, and all of this sort of stuff.

But the amazing moments, it's actually sometimes it's just about being in the house. So every so often I find I need to work at home, especially since we've got an office. I just need to be there and be able to stop doing whatever I do if he walks into my space. And that also,

Emily: like, that's the beauty of what we do.

Yes. There's no one there to guilt us for being mums. No. No. Like to juggle between the two different versions of who we are. Because I'm going to say, I mean, my kids are a bit more wet now with stuff because of that. Well, yeah, that's the age. Yeah. Harry I found yesterday, like he's been at, he's been at, we're filming this and recording this in school holiday time for us, but he was in, at a holiday camp and I was like, how was it?

He's like, yeah, good. But then like, this morning he was like, oh yeah, and then this happened, and then this happened. And it's like they're delaying, it's like, yeah. Like dude, I'm barely awake right now, okay. Keep telling me more, keep telling me more. A

Sarah: 14 year old woman has been on a 10 day school suspension, and so it was very nice to be able to be at home and supervise

Christine: them.

See? They do, they do, they do. And nobody told you that. No, but there's a lot of things no one tells you that we're talking about before we start. There's

Emily: nothing, there's so much things that are not told about parenthood being parenthood. No, I can tell. No, well that's wrong. It's a whole new world. And just excuse me, when I

Rah: leave the studio, I'm going back to my cat, who will be mad that he hasn't had wet food since 8.

30 this morning. I'm going to be in the doghouse. Mine was wandering around the house

Emily: meowing at the top of his fucking lungs today, and we're like, would you shut up? Yelling at the cat. But I did giggle, I saw your thing the other day about like, you're working with my real brain trying to work

Rah: with the cat.

Give it a cuddle and a kiss. It was a rare moment when Mog was sitting in a spot that was actually conducive to me using my laptop.

Yeah.

Rah: Whereas normally Cody, her brother, the arsehole that he is, sits just off centre, right where I need to move my arm. Between the keyboard and the mouse, and so it becomes a nightmare.

So then I end up punching him, as I'm like, and then ripping his legs out. And, uh, yeah, it's, yeah, it's a whole thing. I did laugh, I did. So clearly I, I understand exactly what you three have gone through with parenthood.

Emily: I did giggle because I laughed. I said, I was talking to someone about you the other day and I said, That you would selectively know kids, and they were like, fuck, that's a smart idea.

Christine: Yes.

They knew, right? Oh yeah. Right?

Christine: She got that right. Absolutely. Um, Sarah, you're the boss of all your social media for your business and stuff like that. So is there anything specific or different or targeted that you need to do, you know, to market your business? Yeah, it's, and

Sarah: it's, you know, you'll find it on social media, really it's employees basing it on their time and energy.

I have spent my time just like mine. Yeah, it's really intense. People want to see, making that connection with me is really important. We have to be careful about what we do share. We need permission for everything we share. We don't want to give too much away, we want to grant clients and we want to fly over in their visits.

So we need to get lots of permissions and things. But at the moment there's a lot of information sharing. So people are using social media, they're using Instagram, they're using TikTok to collect information about what's happening in the NDIS and collecting information about what they can do with their funding, because most people have these plans and no idea what to do with that.

So we're using our socials a lot for that. Um, I'm also supporting the people that I'm working with to create their social, so teaching people how to use Instagram. Um, in the program that I've set up, it's got everything from basics, how to open Facebook, how to do, and do the basics of those things.

Certainly no social media expert whatsoever, but I do enjoy me some socials, and um, It's the first step. It's the first step, that's right. So you're just having a very basic knowledge of the logic and how that works is um, I'm having fun learning those as well. LinkedIn is really big for us when it comes to disability support because that's where we make all our connections.

So most of the support coordinators and corporate level people are all on LinkedIn and that's how they build the networks and make the connections. So I spend a lot of time behind the scenes on LinkedIn talking to people in their offices. Do

Emily: you do it through your business page or your personal page?

Sarah: I have a personal page that I make a lot of connections through. Um, and then I also have a business page. So you

get double, double target. Cause

Sarah: I'm doing a couple of different things. My personal social media, Is in the mix of a lot of what I'm doing for work. Um, but there's also a lot of things I can't show.

Um, because I work in government and industry. You know, their taxpayer dollars are going to the right place. So, um, I feel that personal development is essential. It's something that I could not have done, got to this point without. Um, but I think it's the same way. So, yeah, there's definitely. But yeah, it's a lot of work.

Yes. I feel like that's what I'm always chasing to tell you. Yeah,

Rah: yeah. But, in fairness to what you're saying about it's lots of work, everything is lots of work, it's just a bit different. It's just a bit different, yeah.

Sarah: A lot of things can be different, but it's also I find it important. Where, um, the rest of my team, um, is actively waiting.

It's my job. It's my job. Because I'm the only one who knows how to use the tiki tops.

Emily: You either love it or you hate it. Yeah, that's right. Like the manly sea eagles. You either love them or you hate them. I fucking hate the sea eagles. Yeah, that's why we have to differ, because I married a manly, hardcore manly fan.

Sarah: My husband doesn't follow football, and one time, I can remember when we first started dating, I said, you know what? Is the state of origin on tonight? He said, I don't

know. That's funny. To be honest,

Sarah: I would probably react the same way. Like, yes. Might have been the sexiest thing he ever said. And that's how baby number four was

born.

Sarah: That's

so funny.

Emily: That's really clever. I love it. I love it. This is a big dick. It's a big green

flag. That's not a red flag, it's definitely green. I love it.

Christine: Well, I think we could seriously keep talking, um, forever, and I know that we're going to finish this and a lot of questions are going to come up, um, from our point of view, um, and I'm sure there is going to be some stuff in your head already that you know you would like to keep, continue to share.

So I'm pretty sure there'll be around, round two. If you'll have us. If you'll have us, um, absolutely. But what I would like to, um, ask you is just something completely left field, using a different part of your brain and not on topic at all of this conversation. So now you can start to chill. Yeah, that's right.

They never start to chill. I don't know what

I'm talking

Christine: about. I can hear the bar getting ready for a drink soon, you know. Um, so. I'm just thinking, I'm thinking Sunday because that's the day of, you know, it's just a day that says nothing to me if it's ever possible. But say it's a Sunday and the reality is that it's not your usual reality.

So you have nothing to do,

no

Christine: work. no parenting responsibilities, no grocery shopping, none of that boring life, admin, work admin shit to do. How, what would be the ideal way you would spend a free, a totally free day? This

Sarah: is actually kind of gross, but I would use that day to be smelly, braless, hearing a bum

on my bed with my electric blanket on. And been watching something with no one speaking to me. Like, no one. Because it is, it is just so rare to have not a person speak to me. Yeah. That, that would be my, that would be really

Emily: weird. Having an idea. We should create a retreat where people have a full, like, retreat.

Half day. Just all day. A day. Doing nothing. Stay in a hotel room. Just a bed. We're gonna turn up. We're gonna put in WiFi benders. Watch

Christine: your series. Yeah. Nobody talks to you. You're fed. Lock your phone in a box. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. And just do absolutely nothing. Yeah. Because I do nothing. Nothing. And,

Christine: and, and that's a good thing.

And that's the thing, like, we never, never, never, never do, or, you know, like, my bad habit is I might get up in the morning and think, well, my husband will be in bed till, you know, four o'clock this afternoon, so do I run around like a blue arse fly, or do I go, no, you know what, I'm going to sit on my arse for a while, but then it's like, oh, I've still got to get and do the grocery shopping.

Sarah knows

Sarah: that, like, it's so rare to have this opportunity that you probably should. Clean the house, do this, do that, you always complain you never have time for, but I would just literally write it. I love it. I love it.

Christine: You had me at nobody talk. Yeah, nobody speak to us. Yeah, nobody speak to us. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, no, I love that. Thank you.

Rah: I get itchy thinking about that with my mates who have kids of like, Stop packing, talking. Don't get meme y, sorry. Yep. I really, I really can't do it for you. Until they're

Sarah: teenagers. No, please don't. I only want to talk to you when you're sleeping and you're in bed. Yes. Or when they want money.

Or when they want money. Yep. Or a lift.

Christine: Okay, so people are listening and somebody might want to get into the industry. Somebody might need some disability support for a family member or a friend. How do we find you?

Sarah: You can find us on all of the socials. If you are looking for direct support, so support in the community, you can find us at MyPowerFoundations.

We have a website, Facebook, Insta, Tik Tok, um,

so

Sarah: you can contact us through there. Or if you're looking to be a support worker, that's another place to start looking, put me in that direction, I can give you some tips. If you're looking for support coordination, or if you're looking to understand a bit more about the Visible Program, you're a person with a disability who wants to help.

Start your own business. You can look for the right coordination in the same, in the same way. You can Google us for our website. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok as well.

Christine: Fantastic. We will put all that in the show notes. I've already started making notes in our chat to make sure you're getting to the right URLs.

Yeah, Yeah. Absolutely. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today. Nice to meet you.

Rah: It's been my pleasure. Thanks. Yeah.

Christine: Welcome.

Rah: Thanks to everyone for listening. Thank you to the Bella Vista hotel. Season two. Oh shit, you guys, this is actually. Real? It's becoming a real thing. An ongoing thing.

Emily: Oh my God.

Got a big gal pant on now. We do. You just made yourself another job, didn't you? I know. Yeah, we really did. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming everybody. And this is the part where

Rah: Rah will insert the outro music. Oh, sounds fantastic. What did

Emily: my daughter do the other day? She's like, like and subscribe. Dun dun dun.