Foreign.

Hello.

Welcome back to the Promoter podcast.

I'm your host, Felicity Fury, and I'm joined by the incredible Renee Wootton Tomlin.

Welcome back to the show, Renee.

So good to have you.

Where are you calling in from today?

So good to be back.

I'm calling in from Larrakia country today.

Whereabouts are you calling in from, Felicity?

I'm in Gubby Guppy country today.

And I actually wanted to start this episode with a bit of a story because I've been loving the magpie sounds as I wake up each morning.

And I also love the song Follow the.

Yeah, Follow the Sun.

I think it would be.

I'm going to call it, like my favorite song ever.

I'm just obsessed with it.

And there's something beautiful about that morning sun.

My kids are currently waking up at like quarter to five with the sun, but apart from that, it's beautiful.

And I actually wanted to find out a bit more about the magpie.

I was like, maybe magpie could be my totem or something.

I don't know if you can give yourself totems.

I'm probably being like, really culturally inappropriate, but there's this gubby guppy story about magpies, which is that essentially the earth used to be dark and it was completely covered in darkness and there was like a blanket across the earth and the magpies came in and I'm not sure if you heard this story, Renee, but.

Or if it's in other indigenous cultures as well.

Sorry, groups other than Gubbi Guppy.

But the magpie lifted this blanket off the earth and it became light.

So every morning the magpies get up and sing this song.

And I just thought that was such a beautiful story.

And I love that there's this concept of the magpies bringing light and transformation and new ideas, which I think is going to be a bit of our topic today.

Have you heard that story, Renee?

Can you fact check it or am I completely off topic?

Oh, no, I have not heard that story, but I think it's a beautiful story.

And coming back to totems, so your totems are typically given to you and it's all part of your skin name and your cultural heritage and lineage.

Mine is the whale, which is really wonderful.

I love the whale.

And the whole concept around a totem is that you're the protector of that animal.

So if you to protect the magpie and you feel real alignment with the magpie, that's beautiful.

It's your own version of a totem.

And yeah, I think there's lots to be said for the incredible stories that surround nature and animals and that connectedness with first nations culture.

So thank you for sharing that.

I think it's wonderful.

I'm just buying magpies at the moment and the lizards as we talked about in previous episodes.

Maybe there'll be like an animal feature every podcast.

But I do think it was just really beautiful to get connected to some of those local stories, particularly as we come into summer.

And yeah, there's more magpies around.

I feel like magpies are kind of.

I mean, they're very protective anyway because they protect their nests.

And I've been swooped before the arrow along the Yara in Melbourne and all kinds of places.

So I'll have to maybe get acquainted with some local guppy guppy people and see if they.

Yes, I can get.

They could recommend a totem, Melanie, or something like that.

To be continued.

You've actually inspired me to a bit of a story on the ibis, which people in Sydney Gadigal country also refer to as the bin chicken.

There was this incredible Gadigal uncle that came out and gave an acknowledgment of country that I listened to once and he said you need to respect the ibis and stop calling it the bin chicken.

That he was like, the ibis is a wetlands animal.

It was from like more central New South Wales.

And because of the wipeout of their natural habitats and the routes that exist in those wetlands now, they've all moved in towards metropolitan cities and obviously now have to live off of, you know, bins and rubbish.

So it's actually a really sad story.

So protect the bin chickens, protect the magpies and appreciate the role that they play in our natural ecosystems.

Great shout out.

Shall we get into it?

Yes, we.

We do have ibis flyover and they don't smell as the ones in the cities, which I'm very appreciative.

We do have local ibis as well.

This is not the podcast about nature stories, believe it or not.

But the transform and maybe taking flight will also come into our topic today.

New perspectives.

And what we're going to get into is have you ever felt like you really wanted to go for a promotion or an opportunity, but weren't sure if you were ready?

This could be going for a board role.

It could be going for something that just seems really big and far out of reach.

It could even be starting your own business or your own side hustle or your own project.

Renee, I know this is something that you've been thinking deeply a lot recently given the changes in your career, how are you thinking about it and what's coming up for you?

When you're questioning whether you should take a big take flight, just go with the theme into the next phase of your career.

Very bad analogy for an aerospace engineer.

I apologize.

I appreciate the pun.

So I think the way I'm thinking about this right now is just like I think the barriers and the limiting beliefs that we grow up with and I think a lot of this is formed if you go to university or when you're starting your career and have a lot of self doubt you kind of go oh, like, you know, there's this clear path where I go and I do these studies, all my training and then I go and get this job and then if I want to earn more money, you know, I've got to go and follow this particular set of rules around spending X amount of time in a job and then only after I've spent that amount of time and then I can apply for the next promotion and then, you know, once I get to that one then I go for the next promotion and then maybe I cap out at a certain point then I got to think about, you know, whether I change verticals in this industry or if I change industries completely to kind of either pursue an ambition to become a leader and, or to try and earn more money.

And I think when I started out my, my studies and my training I very much, you know, always considered that I would be an employee.

And it's only really in the last five years where I've really thought I'd really like to run my own business but I don't know what that's going to be yet.

And then there's this massive self doubt that's kind of coming after that, like oh, I don't know if I'm ready for that and I don't know if I'm ever going to be and you know, you know, maybe I'm just safer and it's more stable if I just continue to become another employee in another role in another promotion.

And my thinking has fundamentally changed now and I think this is what I wanted to share with our listeners today is, you know, there's so many external pieces of information you collect over your career, whether it's from someone or in training or you know, through your peers that tells you that you know, you're good at your job and maybe you should go for a promotion or you're good at your job but maybe you should stay where you are.

And we're never really taught to go and lead businesses like everything around our training and our careers, when you're an employee teaches you to just think like an employee, like, okay, I'm going to do my time in this job.

I'm going to maybe apply for that promotion.

If I'm lucky, maybe then I'll get that job.

And I'm not going to explore trying to get a promotion somewhere else because like, I need to do my job time in this, in this industry or in this particular organization because then I build trust and loyalty and only then can I really deserve that promotion.

And I would just like to say that I feel like that's all just.

A joke.

That you don't have to follow any rules unless you believe in them.

And so I think what I'm trying to say today is, you know, if you expand your mind, if you expand your mindset and the people that you're spending time with, it can completely change how you view yourself, how you view your job, and where you want to go next.

I think that the reason this is so important for me to share this today is because I think that I have had a fairly unique career and perspective which has been built by the fact that I have worked for multiple people, I've done different jobs and you know, I would say people look at my career and go, oh, wow, you're so smart, you've achieved so much and you're so far ahead of other people that are at this, this same age.

And I would say that from my frame of reference, I'm nowhere near where I want to be yet.

And I would say that actually this mindset of, you know, following the rules and applying for that job and doing my time has really slowed down my progress in ways as well.

And I don't think that there's a right answer here.

I think it's just that, you know, if you have this niggle and dream of wanting a promotion or wanting to be your own boss or wanting to start something on the side of your career, or growing your mindset, it could be just self progress and, you know, self growth in any way, shape or form that you define that.

That going out and, you know, learning from different people and getting different perspectives and growing your mindset can be ultimately the thing that leads to the best promotions or the best opportunities in your life.

You don't have to follow the standard set ladder that is sometimes prescribed to us through university or through our training.

And it really is job dependent.

I would say in engineering it probably does apply that you do have to do your time in certain ways and you have to gain your qualifications to be safe, to be able to operate and you know, really lead important big projects.

But in other, in other scenarios, you can be your own boss early, you can be your own boss at 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.

Like there's no, there's no rule that says that you can't grow and be the best version of yourself today and that you have to do your time.

Felicity, does that resonate with you?

What are your thoughts while I'm sharing all this?

Yes, I think it's, it is kind of funny because oh, when you're, it definitely is context dependent.

Like obviously when you became a commercial pilot, Renee, you had to do your hours.

Like there's no getting around that one.

And you know to be an engineer you got to get your engineering degree or qualification.

And I think there are certainly in technical fields there is a real importance of doing that time.

And I think it really, when I think about that, I definitely am the proponent of don't like, don't worry about doing your time, just go for it.

I'm a bit like stuff that especially early on in my career and I was like, literally like, oh my gosh, how long do I have to wait doing this like calculations before I can go lead projects where I can get in front of clients.

I've since learned that I think one of my strengths is being able to be in front of clients, present ideas, communicate, lead things.

And my strengths lie in bringing information together and synthesizing ideas.

So I'm much more suited I guess to that style.

But I think if you want to do that, you've got to really understand where you fit and then where your team fits in the puzzle.

So you need to have that technical expert and you need to have a great relationship with them and they do need that experience.

I think there's almost like ways around it and it's going to depend on who you are and your personality and how you suit that.

And I think there's also if like what I've learned in my journey is that there's ways to test it out as well.

If you're not sure in terms of like taking the jump, when's the right time or ye, how much time do I need to have done?

I think you can, there's so many ways that you can test things in a really, I feel like safe way in terms of safe for your career.

So for example, when I started Power of Engineering it was on the side.

I had a full time job and I Got to see how am I going to go as a leader.

And a few years in screwed up.

All our volunteers quit except for me and my co founder.

Our three years of funding went into two.

You might have heard me share about this in the podcast before and we were like, okay, we have to rebuild now.

I learned a huge amount personally as a leader and one of the leadership lessons, lessons I learned as a side note was that I hate being told what to do.

So I was like, I just won't tell anyone what to do.

I'll be like, here's the plan, do whatever you want.

And then people got really burnt out.

There was that like lack of direction.

There wasn't those guardrails really guiding people.

So as a leader I needed to have a vision but also have that, those guardrails.

Now if I'd done that in a job that could have been like terrible for my career, it might not have led the work properly.

There could be actual impacts to whatever we were building.

So it would have been really tricky.

Then when I started my next business, I ended up quitting my job to go into it full time.

And I was actually in a sales and marketing role which is obviously very different to engineering.

And what I didn't realize was that our sales cycles could be one to two years and we didn't have the cash flow in the business to make it commercially viable, to make the sales fund it and everything like that.

And ultimately we had to close the business.

But I put all my eggs in one.

But in that basket, I had quit my job, I'd gone for it.

So the next business I started when I deciding we aspire, I was doing part time, we aspire part time business before it made sense to transition into it.

And I knew at that time that we were going to be ready.

And on the side we've been building our property portfolio as well.

So there's a bit more, I guess, risk diversion in terms of applying different asset building and all that kind of stuff.

So I think, yeah, I wouldn't have ever thought I'd be someone who started a business.

It wasn't really anything that was talked about ever.

Even though my first parents actually had a small business growing up, it wasn't really something that I considered.

And I used to think that the engineering career path was very linear, like literally grad engineer, engineer, senior engineer, team leader.

Like that's what I thought I was going to do.

And Sheryl Sandberg, the former CEO of Facebook talks about this, is that careers are jungle gyms and not Ladders.

And I think actually in our engineering world, projects are complex and complicated.

So we actually need people who can integrate, who can bring people together.

And we need people who like, literally AI.

It only came out like ChatGPT.

It's only been around for a few years.

We're all learning it at the same time.

And so at such an access point and opportunity for people to take advantage of those things.

So I certainly think that your age doesn't define what you can do and your capabilities.

I don't think that for every role you need to do your time.

I think it comes down to how you think rather than what you know.

And that's going to serve people in the future.

And I think that thinking comes down to where, whether you feel like you can go for that big opportunity or not, that's really going to be down to your thinking and your environment.

Which you were sharing about earlier.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think when I, you know, think about my own career, it's quite interesting because I don't think I could have been ready or would be ready now to start my own business had I not done the last 15 years of getting the experience that I've had.

But the irony is, you know, anytime I've been ready and felt ready to move on, I've.

I've gone and done that.

I haven't stuck around in a role for three years because that's the expected loyalty time before you are, quote, unquote, ready for a promotion.

So, you know, if my career is an, an indicator of the potential that you can have and what you can chase, don't, don't limit your beliefs to thinking that you need to have, you know, all the qualifications and all the ratings and all of the experience before you can go out and try something different or get that promotion.

Certainly, I think in a lot of cases I've walked into roles and I have genuinely felt like I've picked up most of the basics within the first two months and then from there gone on and, you know, found that the role is quite routine now that I've worked out how to do it.

An example is I joined Qantaslink Fleet Technical team back in 2019 and I was on the on call phone within two months.

Months.

And some, in some cases the prior team or the current team, you know, took about six months to be on the on call phone because you were dealing with live problems that pilots were dealing with on the line and you had to, you know, help troubleshoot what their issues were.

And, you know, that was a Real moment for me where I was like, oh, like, I've kind of picked this up pretty quickly and I'm willing to get on the phone and to answer these problems and to accelerate my learning even more because I have to figure out what the solution is.

And I might not know what it is right now, but if I get the call, then I'll work it out.

So, yeah, I think that there is just something to be said for if you have an inkling of a feeling that you are ready for change, you are ready to do something different.

Sometimes it takes believing in yourself.

It takes speaking with people that back you, and it takes connecting with people that maybe think differently for you to realize that there are no rules when it comes to your career.

You do what you can to live in alignment with your intuition, the things that you love and how you like to spend your time.

You know, sometimes things, you know, go haywire and they go off the path that you want.

But again, coming back to utilizing those people and those supports to really help you get clear on, you know, if that's for you or not.

I mean, you could totally nerd out and do a risk assessment.

Like, I would legit do that because that is how I would think about things.

Risk assessment, talking about risk and de risking things.

Also going to be my upcoming book, little plug for that.

But yeah, like, I.

There are people who will totally disagree with me.

Like, I can immediately of people who I've used to work with who'd be like, no, absolutely, you need to do your time.

And I got told that too.

You need to do your time.

You need to be more this, you need to be less of that.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like, people are going to have all their kinds of opinions.

I would ask yourself, is this someone that I want to be?

Like, do I want that career and do I want that role?

And then when it comes to de risking it, there's.

Everyone's life is completely different.

So for you, it might be that you have a mortgage and you're supporting a family.

Or it could be, I want to get the quickest way possible well out of here.

What's my path to do that?

Okay, maybe that's working two jobs.

Maybe that's actually working for free and interning somewhere while you have your day job.

There's so many different possibilities and so many different solutions.

But I think it's important to feel like, not shy away from the realities of these things.

So it does take time to understand how business works.

So have you worked in a business?

Have you got that kind of knowledge if that's something you want to go do or is there someone that you can shadow and learn from and get that experience?

And I spent yeah time with some CEOs and I, I used to think I really want to be a CEO running a big company and then more time I spent with them.

Like actually I don't want to do that at all.

I don't want to go work for a massive corporate and run a big massive corporate.

And it was so helpful spending the time with them and actually doing that research rather than going down that path.

Now a lot of people might say things like listing you should go do an mba, you should go do these things and then that's a pathway to CEO.

And I think a lot of people do do that.

For me I was like if I go do an mba, that's going to be a lot of knowledge.

It's going to cost me a lot of money.

The path I ch take was I'm going to go start a business and actually learn how to do a business by doing a business.

And that's how I figured out a lot of business things.

So I think there's lots of different pathways to doing this and it is around like how do you de risk it for yourself?

For me I found something that really helps me and makes a difference for me in terms of my level of stress and anxiety is knowing where I'm getting money from.

If I in the past not knowing that has really stressed me out.

So I need to have a really good foundation of income or yeah whether that's a day job or whatever because that I find incredibly stressful.

If I'm really stressed then I don't have the time to focus on doing my business.

I don't have my that focus to be creative.

So I think it's going to be really individual for everyone.

But I think it's important to spend that time of okay, why not think of a goal 10 times bigger just for argument's sake, just like play it out there.

Don't think one or two times bigger, think 10 times bigger.

And Grant Cardone actually wrote a fantastic book, book called 10X which is about that kind of thinking.

And when you know so thinking about that then what are the things that you need to know?

What do you need to work out?

And then how could you derisk those things?

Is there a person you can shadow?

Is there a way you can get that experience, you know?

Yeah.

And like I said, it's going to be individual for everybody else.

I Don't know if that helps, Renee, but that's how I think about it.

Yeah, No, I think that's phenomenal.

I think that, yeah, there are rules within every industry.

If you're, again, looking to do that technical kind of leadership business role, then you probably do have to do your time and XYZ role to build that knowledge and that credibility and the reputation.

I know that that certainly worked for me.

But I think at a certain point in your career, when you've had enough promotions and.

Or you figure out really early on you could be 20, 19, 12 years old, and figure out that I'm really passionate about this one thing, I'm going to go out and do that right now.

Up.

I was listening to a podcast just this morning on property development, and this guy graduated from a business degree, went and did one year at IBM in a business development role and realized it wasn't for him.

He saved $100,000 and decided to do a property development, you know, project during that year that he worked.

And then he left and he went and started his own property development business.

So all I'm saying is you set the rules for your career.

If you've got a goal in mind and, you know, you need to do your time, go do your time, but if you have another goal in mind that doesn't require you to follow that ladder that is generally set for us when we first step into our careers, go out there, grow your mindset, grow your network, and chase the thing that you really care about.

Because being an employee for life and having to work until you're 65, 67 years old, whatever the retirement age these are these days is as an employee, because you think you have no other option is really, you know, a thing of the past.

I think our generation as millennials, we're really redefining what it means to have a career and what that could look like.

So this is just a piece of encouragement to say you are so free to set big goals for yourself, they can look different to what your peers expect of you.

And if you have any questions along the way, we're here to support you.

We are, you know, trying to take this advice ourselves at this very moment.

It's been a really tricky year for both of us here, 2025, and we're trying to redefine what success looks like, if not on a daily basis.

Felicity.

Certainly on a monthly basis.

So, yeah, go out there, you know, dream big, and good luck with your next promotion.

We are here to support you.

I think success sometimes, to me, is just getting out of the house with two children.

Michael is away at the moment, and I'm just so proud of myself that I was able to do that today and get the kids to time.

So sometimes success can be the micro things as well.

As Renee said.

Let us know if you have any questions.

We can't wait to support your journey, however, that looks for you in your own unique way.

This is the Promoter podcast.

We help you get promoted and be great when you get there.

Thanks for listening.

We'll see you in the next episode.

See you in the next one.