#337 Lara Husselbee – Transcript

Jess Brady
Today, I’m speaking to Lara Husselbee. Now Lara has been in finance for a number of years. However, actually why I asked her to be a guest today is because she is a board member and the incoming president of where it purple. We talk about who are where it purple? Why do they exist? And how can we get involved? I’m going to issue a trigger warning because we do talk about youth mental health. And the stats are really alarming. And I’m really hopeful that you and your team are able to get involved in this year’s wear it purple day. Welcome, Lara.

Lara Husselbee
Hi, Jess.

Jess Brady
I’m so excited. I’m so so excited to have you on today’s podcast. And you probably can agree that I sort of bullied you a little bit to make sure to make sure that we had you before really specific date. So very, very upfront, I want to say an enormous Thank you. I know that this is such a busy time for you. I’m going to talk about all the reasons why in a minute. But I basically said you have to come on, it must be before this day that we’re going to talk about so that you can help us as a financial advice community, learn more and engage and celebrate so a massive thank you.

Lara Husselbee
My pleasure. And honestly the best bullying I’ve ever experienced. And I’m a nice father for my brother who works in this space who’s can’t believe that I’m on a financial advice podcast?

Jess Brady
Oh, well tell him you’re nailing it already. Um, now, for people that don’t know you are a busy busy person today specifically, we want to talk about wear it purple day, and we’re going to talk all things where it purple why? What is it? Why does it exist? Why should we get involved? How can we get in got involved, etc. You are the board director and you’re a co president? Interesting. I’ve never heard of a co president before. For the people that have never heard of where it purple? Can you help us understand? What is the organization all about?

Lara Husselbee
Yeah, no problem. Um, so I might take it just back just a little bit. And just make sure that I’m introducing myself appropriately. So my name is Lara. And you’re right, I’ve stepped into a co President role. But basically, the easiest way to think about it is incoming president versus outgoing president, we’ve just got a bit of a handover period. And I identify as a lesbian woman who is very much out in the workplace. And somehow I’ve adapted my career to be often introducing myself that way. Pronouns also she and her. And so I’ve been with wear purple since 2018. And have sat on the board since then. But as as I’ve called out recently came into the president role. And we’re at purple exists as an organization, not for profit and charity to help elevate the issues that LGBTQ youth face with the aim of providing visibility for these issues, but also visibility of role models. And a life that is actually varied from what the statistics show that our LGBTQ youth face. We’ll talk about it probably later in the podcast, but it’s pretty it’s pretty harrowing. When you look at things like mental health and suicide ideation and suicide or attempted suicide, and no kid should face that, but you know, when you start laying on the various intersections and minority groups that kind of get Speights higher and higher. And so our aim is to show that there’s a beautiful community there have allies of other LGBTQ plus community members who are living their life the way that they want to, with a label without a label, whatever. And that this is things that they can these kids can achieve, too. Whilst we also aim to remove some of the structural issues that we have in our society around that.

Jess Brady
Amazing and you do such such a great job with, as you say, really, it’s a community organization, predominantly volunteers, I understand.

Lara Husselbee
Yeah, actually, we are 100% volunteer led, which means that you often at this time of year have very frayed board members and council members. So we all do this on top of our day jobs and, you know, busy lives, I think volunteers by nature of busy people so that we all carry a lot, but we’re all driven by the same purpose of what I read out before, things aren’t acceptable the way that it is. And, you know, we all want to do a better job for the youth that exist in Australia and inspire other people to think about that too, no matter where they sit on that allied to LGBTQ community member spectrum.

Jess Brady
Let’s take some jargon, and explain it. Because I would imagine that there’s some people who are listening who are thinking I have I have a bit lost already, which is fine. Stay with us. That’s okay. Um, what is an ally? Yeah, great

Lara Husselbee
question. So look, I think an ally is someone who’s actively invested in making change. And there’s a lot of people who would say, I support people who sit within a community, however, they’re not really doing anything. And I think that’s for me is, and I’m for all of these mythbusting language things, I’m going to talk from my experience rather than a dictionary, or, you know, what’s the right way to say things, I’m going to use my own language. But I think ally ship becomes when there’s activity. So for example, you know, I would be an ally, for someone who sits within the trans or gender diverse community, that isn’t my lived experience, I certainly know a lot because of my work with wear it purple and amazing friends who belong in that community and who have taken me to different events, so I can learn more. And then, but I’ve done my own research as well to learn more about that community. And that’s the piece that I just really want to underline is that that ally ship is active, were a supporter is kind of passive. And we probably see a lot more supporters until there’s a big event like marriage equality, or our census, or I was about to swear them,

Jess Brady
offerings allowed, I allow swearing on my podcast.

Lara Husselbee
Good. Or, you know, recently what it’s been like in politics with transgender diversity movie, political fodder. So yeah, that’s what I would define ally ship as is something active.

Jess Brady
Great to understand the difference between a supporter who might think yep, happy, very happy for people to live their own life, but not necessarily do something actively to help some of these issues,

Lara Husselbee
or even actively learn more. And we would have seen it or would have heard about this more within things like the Black Lives Matter movement, but you know, there’s a real lien upon people from minority groups to educate. And look, I certainly have that role. It’s definitely one that I’m happy to wear. But not everyone is, nor should we assume that people will help you on your journey to understand. And so it is seeking out podcasts like this, it’s seeking out written material is going to events that may make you uncomfortable, so you can learn more. That is what ally ship is where you have a desire to learn more that steps beyond that passive support. And then if that inspires you to, you know, stand up at a protest or speak up for someone, I would encourage everyone to speak up for someone if they’re being bullied at work, but you know, those sorts of things. That’s the next space is to, you know, I’ve learned and therefore I have the language or I know what’s appropriate.

Jess Brady
Amazing. I think listening to this podcast is perhaps the very first step that someone may have taken so far in becoming an ally. And, Laura, we need allies because when you learn more, and you lean in, and you understand what the landscape looks like, it’s really terrifying. You know, I think that there’s probably some people listening to this podcast who might think, well, I don’t really understand like, we’ve achieved marriage equality in Australia, like why do we need Need? Why do we mean days like wear a purple day? Or why do we need organizations like wear a purple? Can you help people who think like that maybe understand what the lived experience is for a lot of LGBTQ youth and young people today?

Lara Husselbee
Yeah. So I’ll give you an example that was said to me recently, at this time of year, as you’ve alluded to just we have to do a lot of speaking events, or we choose to do a lot of speaking events. And I’ve recently had a lot of briefings for these speaker events. And someone shared with me that a colleague had come up to them and go and said, I don’t know what this whole protocol pronoun things about. But I don’t want to do it, because I don’t want to seem like I’m gay. And again, this isn’t a specific to the youth part of your question. Yeah, I can see the shock. But this is someone who is respected in a business, who voiced that they fear the label of being gay. And so for me, I go imagine what it’s actually like to have that label and know that that’s what a lot of people in this world are fearing. But you actually have it because it is you you’re born that way, you are trying your best to be your authentic self, it takes a very, very strong person to be able to navigate that. And that doesn’t mean that they navigate it by just saying yeah, I’m gay. And here are my pronouns like, that means that they are dealing with this 24/7 in isolation by themselves with pain, like the lack of empathy in that one statement. And the fear that that person is choosing to vocalize just shows you how ingrained This is in our society around difference. So that’s obviously an adult playing, right? But then you look at what’s that like coming up, when you’re already questioning so much about yourself? I don’t know what you were like at school, even removing the fact that I was like, you know, oh, my gosh, you might lesbian. The soundbite on that it’s gonna be hilarious. Anyway, like going back to school, you like trying to figure out what your own identity is how you’re gonna come up in the world, we’re told that rhetoric around, you have to stick to one career and like, go to university and like all of these things you’re trying to navigate, figure out testing your personalities, all of this, and then to layer on gender and sexuality into that, where you’re really questioning it and may not be accepted by those who are nearest and dearest to you. It means what we see the statistics that we do, and then you’re often are bullied. So that’s why I joked about you being the nicest bully that I’ve had, because I was bullied at high school for being queer.

Jess Brady
Yeah, right. I think um, so I come from regionals. Probably a strong word, but like Bowgun S, Australia. That’s how I would define where I come from why on represent, you’ll know if you’re from there, why I say that? I say it with the greatest of love. But I grew up in an area that was pretty rough, actually, and very blue collar, very working class. And being gay was something that was very obviously not okay, in my community. And it was very vocally not okay, in my community. And it was really hard because I have a younger brother, who is fabulously gay, and was born fabulously gay. And I would love to tell you that he had a childhood that was free from bullying, and free from the stigma and, you know, was able to be his whole authentic self his whole life. But that’s not true. And I’d love to say that, you know, he’s in his late 20s. Now, and we’ve come so far, but actually, I don’t think that that is true, I think perhaps progress has been made in capital cities. And I’d be keen for your thoughts on that. Albeit, we have a long way to go. But I also think it’s important to call out that in rural or regional Australia, we have so much work to do to de stigmatize. And you talk quite well about the intersectionality piece, and we probably need to allude to what that is. But, you know, I think that if you aren’t someone who is part of this community, let’s pretend you don’t even know someone who’s part of this community. PSU do, they may not have told you, like, we still have so much work to do to help people feel safe to be alive and well in their everyday life. And that really baffles me. And I feel really strongly that I have to create a platform where people know, you can be you and you can be safe and it’s okay. And I think a lot of people want to do that. They just don’t quite know how to help people.

Lara Husselbee
Yeah, totally. And look, I’m certainly not going to be the one that gives all the answers but I can certainly give from my experience in terms of you know, one being a queer woman, too often working in this face for my day job and through that what I’ve learned since stepping into where it purple because it has been a huge learning In space, and thankfully, you know, it’s the right time for me to learn. And I say that as in I wasn’t like closed off to the idea of learning, which I think often we can be when we’re thrown into spaces that may be different, or maybe, you know, hard spaces to navigate because of what you’re being exposed to agree. So

Jess Brady
can you help us learn? Like what it what have what have you learned coming into where it football, like what hit us with maybe some really terrifying information stats?

Lara Husselbee
Yeah, I’m gonna quote largely from Latrobe University study, and it was called Writing themselves in three. And that’s been a series of research. And this is kind of the latest up to date research. But I still say that, like, you know, this was done well before COVID. So, you know, we all know what it was like to sit at home alone or with our partner. And I don’t know which one was easier. That was easy for me. But I just, like I do say these statistics are alarming. And then add a pandemic, well, you had youth who may have had to be in a house where they didn’t feel safe. And that doesn’t mean they weren’t safe. But there’s, you know, until you express your authentic self, or you say what you are, or use your pronouns or whatever, there’s this fear that you’re not going to be safe, because you don’t know how someone else is going to react. So you know, I remember being a kid where before I came out to my parents, and I instantly assumed that they wouldn’t be okay. And whilst that might not be okay to assume something else to someone, it’s based on all those society structures, right. So we probably have a lot of kids throughout the pandemic, who were fearing this, that maybe it was all okay, but they hadn’t had the space to have that conversation. And so before I hit you, with the staff, I think that’s probably one of my first tips for a lot of people listening. And yes, I’ll definitely say parents, but also just anyone, like, you know, it’s really easy to expect someone to have those brave conversations. And often it’s on the shoulders of someone from a minority group or intersection to start talking. But like, imagine what it would be like if it’s flipped to the other way, where it’s parents having this discussion and championing the fact that difference is so important. That difference is what makes up our nation and actually is all of the good stuff of our nation, as opposed to what some of the politicians will say, right? Having difference. I mean, look at even the current makeup of our, our, the the politicians in power at the moment, it is more diverse than we’ve seen in a long time. And that will be stronger for our nation. And hopefully, that just continues. So imagine what that’s like as a parent, or as an awesome art, or as I like to call myself to most of my friends, kids on their wine art. So when they’re ready, when they’re old enough, I’ll be there with a wine in hand and listen to their issues. Like imagine what that would be like to celebrate difference before they go into school. And it works the same for the workplace. Right? So, you know, there’ll be many people listening to this podcast who have small to medium businesses who are like, you know, how do I succeed in a marketplace? The answer is difference. It’s celebrating difference and encouraging difference to come into your workplace, because that’s actually where your people are going to connect to different communities bring in business, but also, the retention rates are going to increase your like attrition decrease the attractiveness of people like myself to learn about employers who are inclusive, you’re going to see mazing candidates come through. So yeah, from a business perspective, that’s just in the recruitment space, but like, from a business perspective as well, celebrating difference and having those brave conversations and being known for it beyond the isolette rainbow sticker on my logo at Pride is actually like, you know, it’s I think that’s kind of my top tip number one is celebrate difference and be brave and have those conversations. But that wasn’t a question. So going back to what that was. So you asked about statistics. So

if we look at kind of the the we talked about bullying, so you think about kids just in general, right? 75% of LGBT iq plus youth in Australia will be bullied because of their identity. And this is kind of looking at kids from the 14 to 17 year old mark, right? That’s like what we’re looking at. So that’s 75% of youth that consider themselves to be LGBTQ plus and that can be questioning as well bullied, that then leads to other significant issues. So they may you know, experience They’re 12 times more likely to experience depression, and five times more likely to experience anxiety. And remember, these numbers were pre COVID. From that, we then see spikes where, you know, youth suicide or the ideation of youth suicide step up. Now, I don’t have the statistics in front of me. So I’m going to quote a general bit for these two, but I think one in five kids in Australia already ideate suicide, and this is outside of LGBTQ or ideate suicide. So it’s rife as it is. But then this almost triples for LGBTQ and then increases again, for our trans and gender diverse. Now I’m sure everyone listening onto this into this podcast, no matter where they sit on that spectrum of allyship, to community member or supporter believes that no kid should ever think that the only way that they can get through what they’re experiencing is suicide, or the idea of taking their own life. And then why does that change when you add some letters in write our theme this year for what purpose still may still human. And we have done that on purpose. Because when you hear statistics like this, and you add in the acronym, or you talk about terms like gender diverse or lesbian, etc, it’s often really easy to forget that we’re actually talking about a person. So why does that feeling of no kid should ever think that death is the only way out? When you change it to LGBTQ kid, etc? So yeah, the statistics are shocking. The other thing that I should say, when it comes to that bullying perspective, 80% of that will happen at school. So, yeah, kids spend most of their time at school, right? No doubt that that’s one of the reasons why the statistic is so high. But it’s a really good thing to list because what is our Department of Education doing? What is our government doing to address that for a lot of the minority groups that exist in Australia. And as I said, the beautiful thing about our nation is it is different. We have many different cultures here, we have many different like, we have an aging population with minimal like growth in terms of having kids. So there is disparity in every way that we look. And that’s actually something to be celebrated. And so, you know, I think about things like Safe Schools, which was a program I probably can’t talk hugely about. But that got rejected from the government after it being rolled out to huge political uproar on both sides, and then you look at like recent events with there was this, I won’t even list a name, it’s not worth it. This person in the Ringu thinks he was running for a candidate, which, you know, is unfortunately a seat that I once lived and volunteered under as a lifeguard who was using literally listening where it purple and trans kids as like, you know, people were at Purple People were grooming kids at school was basically what her tagline was. But then you see some statistics about 80% of people being bullied at school, which then leads to such high rates of suicide. And, and again, there’s lots of numbers people on here. So you think about how much mental health costs our, our country, this is an avenue to resolve that for costs, not just for people as well, right? So you’ve got this politician who’s listing out all of like, literally listing people as groomers. This is a charity that I now head up and I’m being told that I’m grooming kids at school, even though I’ve donated so much of my life to surf lifesaving underneath that state. And they’re not doing anything for that 80% of people being bullied in the schooling dead. It’s just, it makes me sick. Yes.

Jess Brady
Shocking. And it just says to me, Laura, that like, the level of ignorance is obviously huge, because it doesn’t take much scratching the surface to hear those statistics and go, Okay, this is really horrifying. And even if I don’t have kids, which I do not have children, I feel a responsibility to try to help make sure that people feel safe and thinking about this, and knowing some of the listeners that we have, you know, firstly, I don’t like to think of politicians as leaders, because I think their lag is at best. But I think that there’s so much opportunity for us to say okay, well, we we now know, what we may not have known a few minutes ago with the information that we have. Now. What can we do and how can we help because we must, we actually, we must.

Lara Husselbee
Look I think you know, It would be remiss of me to say that, you know, it would be hard, sure, for the department of education and government to keep up with the rate of change. You look at technology and all that, right, like, Absolutely, I’m not discounting that things are hard to move. But I am discounting it when it becomes about people. And these statistics have been this way for a very long time. You look at the recent things that have come out around consent. And what the department has done is they’re actually allowing people to come in and discuss consent in schools. Whilst it’s being built into their curriculum. I think back to things like safe schools, they that’s that that’s an example of allowing people to come in while their curriculum catches up. But instead, what they’ve done is pander to a very conservative right hand side of our lack of leader politicians, slash potentially society, and aren’t allowing that to come in because it’s, you know, doesn’t line up with certain people’s beliefs around religion. Again, the fact that education and religion a tide or government’s tide baffles me, but I am not here to talk about that. And for those who are listening, I also come from a very Catholic background and actually call myself a Catholic. So I’m, you know, I don’t discount religion as as a belief in general, I just don’t think it should be tied to everything. And then, you know, like, I just baffles me that, this, this, these things can be thrown up in the air and picked and chosen as to what’s acceptable. And again, this is why I’ll bring up the theme around still may still human, is that the stats about 80% of people are bullied in school, which lead to really high rates of mental health issues, depression, which then leads to socio economic issues like housing, a lack of safety and housing, increase of alcoholism and drug taking, which then can lead to higher domestic abuse rates, or sexual abuse, etc. Like it’s it’s an epidemic that is so interconnected, and can be resolved in some of the schools, schooling structures that we have. So if it’s okay, I might jump in with my example. And I will just phrase, I am by no means in the youth category, I’m 34. And whilst I will hang on to that being young, our youth bracket at where it purple is from 14 to 26. And I’ve recently got that rewritten into our Constitution, because I’ve been working on a project that is to do with mental health down in Victoria on the back of the Royal Commission, for my day job. And within that, one of the reforms was reviewing the eligibility of youth as they transition into adult services. And currently, across most states and territories, we have varied eligibility, and that can end at 18, or anywhere between 18 to 26. So I know as an 18 year old or when I was one, if I was expected to transition into an adult service with very different, and this is obviously in in a broken system very differently, I have very different needs at that age to what I do at 26. So that’s why it was really important for me to increase that bracket to align your top line eligibility. So 26 For some people will be like, I would hate to be called Youth at that time. And I probably would have as well. But looking back, I would, I would love to be called I’d love to be called Youth now. But yeah, the reason why I brought up that is because by now I’m 34. And so my experience may be different to some of the youth who, you know, sit in that category of up to 26 now, but I doubt it. So when I was at school, a bit different to your upbringing, I have a very privileged background doesn’t mean privileged doesn’t mean though, that you don’t experience pain. But you get to meander through life with certain exceptions. And being aware of those exceptions. I think it’s really important. So, for example, I’m a cisgendered white woman who yes identifies as a lesbian who grew up in a very affluent suburb of Sydney, Australia, and location and I went to an all girls private school for my personality and needs at the time this school was the bee’s knees like I honestly loved school, disgustingly loves school. And I have friends who some of my nearest and dearest now who hated school, may have had similar backgrounds to me may or may not be queer, but they had they had a different experience. And so that’s why I say for my needs, it was exactly what it was. And I was involved in everything.

Again, like really disgustingly involved in everything. But I loved it, which meant that when the bullying started happening, I really fell hard. And I’m not saying that my experience is worse than anyone being bullied, but it was just such a like one ad experience for me at school. And so I kind of got to see what schooling was like without those rose colored enthusiasm glasses on that I had, when I was 17. And I started boarding school and, you know, again, check the privilege, I was living in the same city and was doing so much that my parents chose to put me into boarding school, what I didn’t know is that they were at the financial brink, and that that would be really damaging for them. But for me, I was, you know, able to go to waterpolo, compete after school doing Javelin at lunchtime. You know, like, I was just, I was doing everything. And it was in a leadership position. So I was vice captain of school then. So I was able to just give my 100% everything and not feel too stretched. Because I could just literally turn up to the boarding house. And I met my first girlfriend in the boarding house, but obviously it was slack. It’s a schooling environment. I don’t know what this means or that. And once some of the borders caught on, it just spread like wildfire through the school, and I had no maybe one girl stand up for us. But I found out like the day before my English exam so that this had just been going on for like a year and a bit all these whispers or this exclusion, like, like it kind of came to a head just before my HSC where a boarder sat me down. And like, Don’t you know that this is why your life’s changed is because people think that you’re gay. And I had no teacher stand up for me, I visibly changed, I lost so much weight, I was like, look like I’ve been crying all night. Like, you know, I started not giving 100% I started not being able to turn up for like, classes, all this stuff. And yeah, parents were like spreading rumors. My parents were really worried. They had a suspicion. And again, they didn’t necessarily have the language. So I do remember a certain statement being said, like, if this is the case, figure out what you want to do. And maybe it is to change it, which is obviously not great language, but I empathize with them now being older at the time, I hated them. So what this kind of experience taught me post and I definitely had this period of hating a lot of people was actually it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t their fault at all. What it was, was the systems and lack of resources that are put in place to support our teachers, our parents and our kids to be more inclusive. This was what 2005 So it’s not, it’s not too long ago. And like, that’s the bit that I don’t know, has really, actually there’s lots of things I don’t know, if it really changed. There’s definitely more structure and support, but there’s so many more loopholes to get out of it. You know, and if I look back at that time, what I needed as an individual kid is I just needed one teacher to care. And I thought I had that. Like, you know, when I when I had those glasses of enthusiasm on I thought I had that I needed one person from my year group to come out and be like, hell no, this isn’t acceptable, like, you know, Laura Stelara. And I actually needed my parents, probably. And again, like, as I said, they were going through some other stuff. But I needed my parents to just give me a hug, and just have a conversation because I couldn’t get it out. I’m like I was really I was like, it’s just this person. It’s not me and questioning everything. But none of those themes that I’ve just listed are different for kids now might be how is different but not the themes.

Jess Brady
No. And I wonder, Laura, firstly, thank you for sharing your story because it’s really personal. And it’s traumatic and no doubt talking about it is helping people learn from the other side. Okay. That actually is a really big deal. And maybe I haven’t considered that before but no doubt every time you tell it. No, it’s it’s it’s still raw and real. I wonder stepping into because you worked in, in the finance world. Did you tell me a little bit about that? Like how, how was it being young working in finance, and what was your experience like?

Lara Husselbee
Look, so I’ve had really great experiences and some negative experiences in the financial services industry. And look, I hope it’s okay to list brands. Because I’ve told this to the brands that black in hindsight, this is where purple has given me the opportunity to kind of call a spade a spade. One of the best experiences I ever had was working from Macquarie Bank like they were so inclusive So I loved my time at Mack bank and the work that they have done particularly around diversity and inclusion and and investing as that as one of their key transformations before doing anything else, like the Agile transformation or my space, like the human centered design transformation. They started off in people and I really have to commend their head of HR now one of their top execs, Roslyn coffee for leading. So that for me was amazing doesn’t mean that there was an odd experiences. But I was I was braver to have those conversations, because I knew I had a brand backing me. When I joined Macquarie it was kind of around the marriage equality. And I actually didn’t think that it was affecting me that much until I walked in and saw all of the like, support the events that were going on the check ins for their LGBTQ people at the time Macquarie as a group decided not to do anything publicly, which again, I hope that they’ve evolved from that. I think they have I’m not sure. I’m sure under the new CEO they have.

But yeah, internally, especially in the bank, part of the group, they were so supportive that I actually realized how much it was affecting me. But that’s when I first started stepping into being authentic in the workplace. And that was only 2017. Yeah, workplace in working in financial services since 2011, or 2010, actually, with Westpac, so I, yeah, that was an amazing time for me in my career, I actually started to be much better public speaker, I started doing the best design work I’ve ever done. I started connecting with colleagues more than I ever have, I started contributing to the workplace so much more. And again, remember enthusiasm, Lara, like she’s got center core energy in terms of netball, like she’s present yelling here, if I need when she’s best, or worse, depending on what side of the team you’re on. So like, once I started feeling safe at a workplace where they cared about me, I really started to give stuff back, I would say there was a couple of gender things I experienced at Macquarie, which probably aren’t okay. But again, there was a safe enough space where I could tackle those things straight on. Whereas when I was working at NRMA, I was a lot younger. And I was still tiptoeing using, like, non gendered language, about my own experience. So I’m really for using non gendered language when you’re talking about someone else, because you shouldn’t assume about who their partner is, how they identify, etc, until it’s confirmed with you, and then use it because that’s what’s confirmed, but I’m talking about my own experience. So I would constantly avoid using the term, she for my partner at the time, who was like, you know, I’ve been with them for seven years, like it was really hard to navigate language and connect to people in your team, when you’re saying my partner, or I didn’t do much on the weekend in fear of them, circling into who that gender would be, and then potentially using that against you. And I had, again, like NRMA ended up being another really pivotal point in my career. And, but how it happened was I had an old boss, who was unfortunately a bit of a bully as well. Female didn’t like females succeeding that weren’t themselves that kind of approach to leadership. And even meeting, there was a nother gay man who had talked about his husband, and this particular leader use this line, which was, I don’t worry, x. Let’s call him John, for now. Don’t worry, John, my life as a lesbian, and I know you’re a gay man. But we all get along in this room, trying to pit two different minority groups together, but also like in front of executives, which it shouldn’t matter who it’s in front of, but like when you’re Junior, like that’s the idea of anyone higher up, which is pretty much everyone freaks you out. And so I’ve just got, like, identified as a lesbian woman and then used as a joke and also pitted against someone else, like I would have an issue with them outside of the room. It was just horrible. And but that person and again, it’s not their name, but they’re very good friend of mine now, reported them to HR and then put me on a secondment with them to get me out of that situation. And that’s when my career started blooming. But I was then able to go back to NRMA when I was working for where it purple doing one of their presentations and basically say this is the experience I had under your roof. What have you done since which was cool,

Jess Brady
and confronting and amazing and important. And while I’ve been listening into Laura, what I think is so one of the things that I’ve heard that’s so obvious, and yet, I think really under estimated is it is not someone who identifies as LGBTQ plus as job or responsibility to take a leadership position in having conversations around this around, you know, educating us on days of significance or why it’s important. Like, that’s such a huge amount of responsibility to put on someone, we as leaders, whether you run a business, whether you have 100, no people that are directly reporting to you, actually, as leaders, it is our responsibility to take charge and say, this is something that I’m leaning into, this is something that I’m learning about, I don’t have all the information in front of me, I’m just starting, or I’m, you know, still on my journey. But I’m learning about this. And I want us to have a safe, honest conversation about it, because what I’m learning is frightening. And I want to make sure that everyone in this room feels safe,

Lara Husselbee
completely. And I think as for a leader, especially in the world that we exist today, in where change is beyond inevitable, it’s constant. I think the key thing with leadership these days is vulnerability. It’s not actually looking like the strong person in hard times, it’s being vulnerable. And being brave with how you question slash then listening. And that combination, it doesn’t happen that often or it certainly doesn’t happen from we’re not taught that that’s what’s to happen up top. But really, that’s the success of a leader is how vulnerable they can be in front of their people along with that active listening pace. And just thought, you know, I was just gonna say, to just pick up on what you were saying around like, it’s not on someone who has the lived or living experience, to be always sharing. I agree with that completely. And it’s bloody exhausting. And there’s definitely people who at certain points can do that. And I’m an example of that now. But there’s so many resources out there. And there’s probably in some of the bigger teams or organizations on this slide listening in is, there’s probably a pride network that you have in your organization, who’s already done a lot of the hard work for you in terms of listing out some great resources or films, etc, that you can go and watch on your own time. And those things aren’t listed out to say that it’s a, like, get a like on your internal workplace or whatever. It’s so that you can go in and actually listen, I think that’s sometimes really hard when we’ve got a world where there’s constantly stuff coming at us, but that for the example of active active allyship, it’s looking at that and going awesome post and then going and doing something with it.

Jess Brady
Yeah. And I am thinking about sort of how do we expand this into really lots of areas of our lives. So I think about, you know, us as finance people who may or may not have a team, firstly, I think that there’s a conversation that must be had in a business, because you might have people inside your business right now, who are not feeling safe to be their authentic selves. And so I think there’s a huge opportunity there. I also think Lara, this extends, of course, to potentially your staff and what’s going on in this sphere, it could be that your family are impacted, and you don’t realize it, it could be that your child is the bully. And I think that is a huge opportunity to sit down and be like, I’m not sure that this impacts you. Let’s have a chat about it. But let’s also talk about the fact that this is something that’s happening on the other side, and how do we prevent bullying? And what do we do when we see it? And I think we, as financial advisors have enormously private and privileged conversations, this is probably something that a number of people’s clients are trying to navigate in their own life as well. Oh, completely.

Lara Husselbee
And I, you know, from the parent angle, I’m not a parent, and I won’t be a parent. And that’s my like, that’s what I have chosen. But I’m certainly going to be a very, if my friends allow very, like active friend to their kids. And I think about what it would be like if we had to have these constant conversations of difference and celebrating it and those hard conversations with like, that’s not how to treat someone. But there is going to be a point where your kid is different. Absolutely. Like we all know that like we all have some variation of difference. And how do you want them to feel when they hit that point where they feel different to the group that they’re around the community that they found themselves in the workplace, whatever it is, no matter how small it is, how do you want them to feel in that moment? You want them to feel champion and accepted? Or do you want them to feel like they have to morph themselves into something else some mold, so that they can maybe be accepted and we know that they won’t be because it’s hard to hide who you are.

Jess Brady
It’s a very, very, very good point. Thank you. Now you and I can talk about this all day all night into one o’clock Most definitely. But unless we can’t, if people are wanting to get involved with wear it purple, because we should say we’ve talked a lot today about the youth in the and the younger side of things. However, my lived experience with wear purple has always been as an adult in corporate Australia and corporate Australia, I think are doing a really good job of raising awareness for wearing purple, and having quite significant events to celebrate and learn. I think there’s an opportunity for small businesses, particularly finance businesses, we at Fox in here. Very proud to celebrate wear it purple, and I hope some more people do this year as well. So it is coming up on August 26. How can witnesses get involved?

Lara Husselbee
Yeah, great question. So, look, every year on the last Friday of August, we celebrate this day called wear purple. And for the organization, when schools come to us, we send out amazing packs, so they can celebrate and make sure that their spaces are inclusive for kids, that ranges from you know, posters everywhere to streamers, etc. And they all do amazing things and fundraisers, which is incredible, because really the money is to go to them. And then there’s this fierce kids, you know, probably getting packet mix muffins, and putting purple on top of them to make donations, right. But a baker’s that I am. But for organizations like you know, this is what we this is one of our main activities, but we do a lot more throughout the year. And so any financial funding that we get bit speaker donations, when we do speaking events, be it merchandise purchases off the website, be it just direct donations in kind or product stuff, etc. Allows us to continue these great, this great piece of sending out school packs to kids, we now do I think, upwards of 1000 1500 schools participate across Australia. Again, they come to us. So we have to be really careful about us doing direct mail outs because of things like safe schools. But for organizations also it creates those safer spaces for people who are working there and allows them to feel that they’re seen or their kids are seen etc. So what I encourage organizations to do is I actually encourage them to celebrate it earlier than where it purple day still works still celebrate where it purple day on the day, but have whatever your key speaker is or whatever how you want to do it a couple of days before allowing your organization to absorb the information. And then on the day, you see parents people are having those conversations with kids. That day, it’s really important that those who want to support or be active allies, or, you know, our community members were purple, so that they like you don’t know who you’re walking past right on that day. And imagine if a little kid sees you and they you know they’re coming out or they’re questioning themselves or hell, they just want their little buddy to feel supported. And they see you wearing purple, you don’t have to have a conversation with them. But instantly they feel safe. And look one of my favorite things when we weren’t in a pandemic world was walking down Martin Place and seeing the array of purple, black people wearing purple on the day. And I’m sure I smiled at many people who just selected a purple brown blouse that day. We all felt like supporters of a really important cause. So yeah, make sure you wear purple, make sure you think about your comms plan leading up, make sure you run your events a little bit earlier. So that allows your people to start having these conversations with their people. And that’s how we make change. And then again, if there’s other ways to get involved, we really love donations of skill along obviously with finance, but skill based stuff. We’re a charity that is led by volunteers, we bring in our expertise, but we don’t necessarily have the capacity to do everything. So at the moment, we have a amazing consultancy Capgemini who’ve come in and are implementing a Salesforce CRM for us, which will actually allow us to track our relationships and keep on top of it and have really solid clean data, which virtual view organization that sprung from two kids in school. We haven’t had that up until now. And we wouldn’t be able to have that if it wasn’t for organizations like that.

Jess Brady
Amazing. So I think there’s lots of different ways people can get involved. I think doing it early is something I had actually not thought about but makes so much thence so please jump on to this. Don’t do it tokenistic Lee don’t give it to someone in your team and be like here you go and do this because I heard that this is a good thing. Like we have to lead this and lead authentically and Even if you don’t feel like you really understand all the things yet, even just saying that and voicing that and learning as a team, I think is a very good starting point, I’m going to link in the show notes, and where people have some really great resources. So if you feel a little bit like you need to learn more and don’t know where to start, don’t worry, we got you. I’m going to put the resources guide on there that has a number of articles and principles for people to learn more about. Laura, before we end today’s conversation, are you okay, if we quickly do some rapid fire questions?

Lara Husselbee
Yes, can I say one thing before we jump in? Absolutely. One more thing. I’m thinking about, you know, what it’s like to, you may not know that you have anyone around you who’s from the LGBTQ space, but you want to like, learn more. Another way that I encourage people to do it is to think about something that’s really important to them. So obviously, finance would be for a lot of people is really important on this pod. So lean into fine, like the financial world, and then learn about maybe the disparities of what it’s like to be LGBTQ, because there, there’s an amazing, I don’t know who it’s from, because they don’t have it in front of me. And unfortunately, it’s how my brain works. But it was a study outside of in Victoria, that looked at the insurance world, and the disparity of LGBTQ being covered. And that range from life, life insurance through to even just car insurance as well. So like that. So that’s, you know, might be the old way in or for like a to give you an example. So I alluded to my, like, parents situation before, so my father actually had early onset Alzheimer’s. And, you know, I know that world very well through my lived experience. But what I actually didn’t know was what it’s like to be in a nursing home as an LGBTQ person. So I went in and did my own research into that space to learn about well, what is it like to then find yourself in a nursing home be at chosen or you’ve had to let go due to a raft of reasons. And actually, a lot of people go back into the closet. That’s the way I would encourage another way for people to look at it is go what’s a lens or or thing that I’m very passionate about, and then learn about another intersection. So it could be LGBTQ and First Nations people or it could be retirement villages, and First Nations could be financed Vernet, First Nations, finance, LGBTQ, whatever it is. Use that as your avenue to get into understand another minority group.

Jess Brady
I think that that is a very, very good way to not feel overwhelmed, and to be able to take off bite sized chunks, learn digest, and then continue to be curious and continue to lean into that learning. Thank you very much. So some rapid fire questions. And then I’m going to let you get on with a very, very, very busy day, week, month that you have, ah, I do this with all of my podcast guests, because typically, we lean in on one topic, but I like to remember that we are human, which is such a good follow on from the things that we’ve been talking about today. So I’d love for you to impart some wisdom to us. What is one thing Lara that you do to look after your mental health?

Lara Husselbee
So I regularly swim in the ocean is the thing that helps me cleanse from a hard day or a hard story that I’ve heard. So yeah, anything to do with the ocean is probably my mental health

Jess Brady
driver. You go do you do it in winter? Like in the cold?

Lara Husselbee
Yes. Oh, my, this year have been very bad. And it’s been a lesson in boundaries. I’ve let work take over a bit too much and not used the ocean to support me as much.

Jess Brady
Okay, what is the piece of advice that you would give younger Lara?

Lara Husselbee
So yeah, I think it would be to continue that North Star or that holding myself to the thing I walk past is the thing that I accept. And as I get braver, and maybe my advice would be get braver earlier, because you don’t want to accept a lot of the things that you’ve seen. And I haven’t, but at the same time, I would have loved to have done that earlier.

Jess Brady
Mm hmm. Do you have something on your bucket list that you haven’t done yet?

Lara Husselbee
Yeah. So along with swimming, I’m a pretty avid hiker. And I was very lucky to do the Larapinta Trail. But I did only six days of the trail. So I want to do the full trail solo and unassisted so no food drops, which is 12 to 15 days, along the McDonald ranges, and beautiful country but harsh country. So it’ll be interesting.

Jess Brady
Oh my gosh, that sounds great. I

Lara Husselbee
can make space for it with clients.

Jess Brady
Wow. And last question is do you have a book to recommend me as part of my fake book club?

Lara Husselbee
I don’t have a book but I have an author. And I will caveat this with a I read to escape a lot of the things that we’ve spoken about Okay. How, and I love crime books. Okay, so as a guy called Michael Robotham, and he’s British but lives actually close to where I grew up in Avalon, Sydney and he writes are like there’s just so many but anytime I see a Michael Robotham book and I just need to like be able to switch off I pick that up.

Jess Brady
Thank you. I have written him down I will look into it. Laura, I’m very excited to have had you too. The privilege really of having you talk about wear a purple sharing your experience helping people that may not have had wear purple as part of their sort of annual remit, maybe celebrate for the first time this year. I know that this is such a busy time of year for you and sharing your story and the stats are confronting and and really hard. So I want to say an enormous thank you on behalf of the XY community. And I look forward to sharing with you not only my wear it purple attire, but as you probably know, I have got my dog, her wearing purple attire so we will be fully decked out and everyone in Surry Hills will know that we are absolute supporters and active allies of the community. So a huge thank you and congrats again for the great work that you’re doing.

Lara Husselbee
Our Thanks, Jess, and thank you so much for making the space for these conversations. It sounds like there’s a myriad of different intersections that you often interview and no doubt your listeners are, you know, lapping it up but also wanting to learn so I really appreciate that this has been one of the topics.

Jess Brady
Thank you, Lara.