In Episode 8, Tracy Thompson, CEO of Hackhunter gives us great tips on meeting the challenges of changing careers head-on. 

“My husband Mike, came up with an idea for a water meter and he's like, this is going to be it, right? This is going to be great. We can upbeat and open-source it and it means that everybody worldwide will be able to make their own water meter for five bucks and then they'll know if their water is leaking and it's going to save water and it's going to help save the ... So I said to him, I don't think anyone's going to buy it. And anyway, I said, there's a market fair, which is where hobbyists get together in Adelaide. 

“So we walk up there, we walk in the first batch of stands, there's a guy who's selling the exact same water meter. So we said, oh, this is awesome. How many have you sold? And he says four. And he said people are just not interested. And I went, yes. And Mike went, aah. 

“So we went back to the place where we were staying and he was and he'd used a particular, it was a new microprocessor. And so he just started thinking about what can I do with this microprocessor? And at the same time, he looked on a bulletin board and saw there was a security guy who thought his wifi was being hacked by his neighbour, but he couldn't prove it. And all these IT guys were on there saying, there's no way you can tell, you can't work out where it is. And Mike's like, I'm sure that you can do this. I'm sure you can work out where the WiFi's coming from. 

“He started playing with the microcontroller and he came up with the solution and that's what we've been working on ever since. So for us, what made us take this entrepreneurial path was the fact that number one, we didn't want to retire. I guess we made the choice to take this path because we wanted to achieve more. 

Tracy shared a powerful story about Hackhunter’s ability to save lives. 

“last year, two FBI special agents lost their lives and three of their colleagues were very seriously injured when they went to serve a warrant on a guy for child pornography and he basically shot them through his door, his front door. 

“He knew they were coming because he had a wifi camera in his front door. So what our products can do, what HackHunter does is we locate wifi. So we know if there's a wifi camera around and then we can actually find it and say, this is exactly where it is.”

Tom and Will discuss the challenges they faced changing their careers. 

Tune in to hear the full interview. 

Preparing your mind to thrive in negative and hostile situations.

In Episode 7, Will and I dive into some of our extreme experiences. Then, our special guest Tony Loughran, Founder of Zero Risk, tells us where to take your mind if you are in an extreme and possibly life-threatening situation. 

Today, we want to talk about personal Risk and the role of proactive mental health in preparing you to put you in the best situations to thrive in a dynamic environment. Throughout my career in the media, I've ended up in quite a few riots and quite a few dangerous places, and you really need to have situational awareness. You needed to have an exit plan. And it was really, really important to have those skills. 

Tony Loughran, put me through a Hostile Environment course preparing you to cover war when I was at SBSTV. Tony served in British Military and then left to pursue a career supporting media in dangerous environments and war zones. These life lessons are the bedrock of the courses Zero Risk teaches. Tony and his team helped bring several families out of Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban. 

Something we'll unpack today is the fact that your body will keep going. But if your mind breaks, then your body will give up, and you'd be amazed at how much stronger your body is if you've got a powerful mind. 

When you start something new, there can be a lot of fear and mental preparedness will help you get stuck in. Seek out feedback even if you're not comfortable with the answers.

Remember, pause, breathe, assess 5 meters all around, then a 15-meter scan, zoom out and start making good decisions.

The obstacle is the way!

How do you have a great job, have a great career, and end up in the right role, to help you live a purposeful life?

In episode 6, Will and Tom ask where the responsibility sits for discovering what we are good at, leaning into it and getting a fulfilling job that we love. Is it simply down to each and every one of us? 

We're told we'll have five or six jobs in our career, Instead of four or five jobs, it's actually like we'll have three or four careers,  however, we think about ourselves as individuals when we apply for a job. But the reality is, it's the teams we work within in our careers that have the most impact, both good and bad, on our lives 

High-performing teams is a big buzzword, but actually, to have a high-performing team is not sustainable because you end up burning people out. So, it's actually getting a team that works for you and works well together will deliver a better outcome for all involved.

You don't have to be the superstar, and you don't have to be scoring all the top points. You just need to be a good team player. You see it in professional sports, but also everybody has come across someone who may have been a great individual performer but wasn't necessarily a team player.

High-performing teams are able to operate in an environment where they feel like their voice is always heard, and the big part of that, I believe, is trust. Trust is a massive component. 

Feature Interview - Fiona Vale, Co-Founder Humanico

“So, why did I embark on a journey? For me, at its core, I'm a firm believer that everyone matters. My first career was centred around the human experience, which was fabulous, designing and delivering programs and working with some of the top financial advisors in Australia.

“What that gave me was the opportunity to observe, understand, anticipate, and appreciate what actually matters to us, as human beings, outside of role, status, and title.

“I then pivoted to the world of executive search, which is where I met my co-founder and business partner, we were fundamentally perplexed by a model, whereby companies spend so much money trying to find one special snowflake and how that can translate value to an organisation which, really, at its core, begs the question, "What about everyone else? 

“There is an abundance of untapped potential lying dormant, and I'm on a mission to bring it to the surface.”

Ikigai  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

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