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Amber Bites Big with Nataliya Senytsya - Co-Founder @Angel’s Care
142 Plays1 year ago
In Episode 3, Amber Bonney Bites Big with co-host Nataliya Senytsya who is the founding partner of Angel's Care, as a not-for-profit Ukrainian bereavement organisation, Angel’s Care focusses on building skills for healthcare professionals and providing continuous support for families who have lost an infant.
Inspired by Amber's own Mantra, "bite big and chew like hell”, we delve into Nataylia's personal mantra, "You have a lot of light in you. Don't be afraid to shine" and discuss where this came from, and how it shows up in both her personal and business life.
In this candid interview, Nataylia opens up about grief and loss, and how her own experience led to her reframing vulnerability as a positive to allow for the good to re-enter, ultimately leading to the creation of Angel's Care - as Nataylia describes it, a safe space for people to share their pain together.
On behalf of Nataylia, Bite Big has donated $500 to her chosen charities, Angel's Care and Sands, a like-minded organisation based in Australia, offering support for parents experiencing bereavement due to the loss of a child.
If you would like to know more about our host Amber Bonney, her business The Edison Agency, or co-host Nataliya Senytsya, you can connect and follow these boss women via the socials links below!
Nataliya's LinkedIn
The Edison Agency's LinkedIn
The Edison Agency's Instagram
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Transcript
Acknowledgment and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Boomerung country and we wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. We recognise First Peoples of Australia as the original storytellers of this country and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
00:00:25
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to episode three of Bite Big, a podcast about boss women leading big brands. I'm your host, Amber Bonny, and today I'm very grateful for the opportunity to meet face-to-face with innovation powerhouse Natalia Sennitzia, who is the founding partner of Ukrainian not-for-profit bereavement organization, Angels Care.
Natalia's Background and Work
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome. Natalia was born in Ukraine, but in 2013, her career brought her to Australia.
00:00:54
Speaker
You're a woman of many talents, a really diverse career background to bring everyone up to speed. You're a service designer by craft, a social innovator. And I really love this expression in your bio, stigma breaker by mission. I think that's really beautiful.
00:01:10
Speaker
You have more than 15 years of experience in business development, marketing and service design, but your core focus now is on leading and the implementation of perinatal bereavement support in Ukraine maternity and hospitals as part of the angels care organization. That sounds like a lot.
00:01:26
Speaker
Your work is focused on building skills for healthcare professionals and providing continuous support for bereaved families. And as a woman of many hats, I'd really love to hear about your journey in establishing Angel's
Personal Mantras and Impact
00:01:37
Speaker
Care. I imagine it's a very emotional and personal journey. It is indeed. And it's an honor for me to speak about Angel's Care here today. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us.
00:01:50
Speaker
So this show is all about personal mantras. And the name Bite Big came from my personal mantra, Bite Big and Chew Like Hell. And what we like in each episode is to talk about how your personal mantra and each of our guests' personal mantra has influenced their life. And I'm going to share with everyone what your mantra is. You have a lot of light in you. Don't be afraid to shine. I really love that. That's a beautiful sentiment. And I'm fascinated to hear, how did that come about for you?
00:02:19
Speaker
Well, it's amazing that it's sort of a summary of things that were happening before. And the way this mantra actually appeared, the way it got a shape of words, was an interesting moment when, you know, actually the war started in Ukraine. And I had to make some bold decisions. I had to decide what is happening now. What am I leaving behind? What am I taking? What am I doing? Because I was back home at this time.
00:02:46
Speaker
Ukraine. So I decided to go to Australia and I realized that this is the moment actually when no one really can provide me support that I need right now. Like most of my friends are facing the same experience. People who are here are also shocked as this is messy, like for everyone, for the whole world.
00:03:08
Speaker
And I thought, well, I should be someone who supports myself. I should be this person who will provide support to me. And I decided to write myself a letter from my future in order to form my decisions right now.
00:03:24
Speaker
So I wrote a letter to myself from the future that I wish to have. And these were the last words of this letter. And I realized, well, this is actually what guides me or what navigates me. And it's been happening for a while already. Wow. That's incredible. Did that last line in that letter, because that letter is a beautiful idea. It's a really lovely sentiment.
00:03:48
Speaker
Did that last line come quite naturally to you as you wrote that? And then it was sort of that aha moment of actually, this has always been there.
00:03:58
Speaker
It did. Amazingly that I look back at this letter in a month or so, and I was like, wow, did I say this? That is beautiful. That came from me. Yeah, it was. And how does this show up for you as a guiding light? Because certainly my experience with that mantra is, and when we ask the question about mantras, not everyone
00:04:20
Speaker
thinks about a mantra. It's not a word that you use often, but when you find that thing and then you realize that's actually being the power or the force that's been helping guide decisions, how does this show up for you?
00:04:35
Speaker
That's actually interesting because if I imagine someone else hearing this, they would probably think about it differently. Someone might think shine about Swarovski, right? Someone might think shine is about like smiling to everyone. This is not about it to me. So in my world, it's about knowing your values.
00:04:54
Speaker
this is what is inside
Values and Confidence
00:04:56
Speaker
of you, right? This is your light, knowing what is actually driving you and actually overcoming the fear in building your own path and in making your own decisions, bold decisions, hard decisions, and actually expressing what is inside of you, what is important for you, what is really important for you. So I actually would say that this guides
00:05:18
Speaker
what I am doing in everyday life. Wow. And do you think it did pre you coming to Australia? Do you think it was that pivotal moment of trauma, I suppose with the with the war where that really started to show up?
00:05:32
Speaker
I think it started earlier. So I think for the first time in my life, I asked myself, what are my values? But mine, not put by society, not put by family, not put by social expectations, was about 30. So I was doing some training. They were like, what are your values? I had written them down, like seven values, these they are. And I didn't believe in them. I was like, are they really mine? I can read them, but they're sort of not driving me.
00:06:00
Speaker
We have this challenge all the time when we're building values for organisations or values for brands. You get stuck on a set of words that are sound generic, can be interpreted in so many different ways and where there's actually a lack of conviction behind them. Yeah, that is true. But that was the moment when I realised I don't really know myself. And it took probably like, how many? Seven years? What an epiphany, though, to get to that point, especially at that age. That's sort of a midlife epiphany traditionally.
00:06:29
Speaker
You had it early. I think it's too late. I haven't done it before. That is true. And I have one more question about the man chart. Is this something that you have to remind yourself of all the time? Like when you're in dark spots or shadows, is this something that you remind yourself about?
00:06:48
Speaker
I do it the way it sounds, you know, like don't be afraid to shine. It's about kind of like sharing responsibility with something bigger. There's a light, I'm just sharing it. I'm not making hard decisions. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm just doing what I'm meant to do. So sometimes it makes hard times actually easier because you can rely on this. You can kind of share the responsibility or share the risk with your own mantra. So it's funny. It's not a real figure, but you can lean on it.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, you can hold it accountable. I want to talk about the confidence to shine because, as you said, shine can mean different things to different people. But, you know, certainly if we think about in you starting your organization with your partner or in your work professional life, talk about the confidence to shine and the confidence to sort of hold yourself accountable to that on a daily basis.
00:07:44
Speaker
I think that's my weakest spot, to be honest, because I had a journey. Like, generally speaking, if I look back in my life, some people learn from books. I learn from experience. I'm actually smashing my head off the walls. Sometimes I'm just like, why are these things happening to me all the time? So I wouldn't say that I had easy journey.
00:08:04
Speaker
And, you know, when they say things that don't kill us make us stronger, I think things that don't kill us often make us much more vulnerable, you know, less confident and they're not necessary serve as well. It's just over the time you see that it was helpful or it was important or you build your strength, but not at the moment. So I actually have consciously work on the confidence. I actually have consciously make decisions
00:08:33
Speaker
to find support. And that's actually not something that had been happening for a long time. It's probably just the last year I realised I cannot do everything by myself. I need people around me. I need to build my tribe. I need to get mentors. I need to do things to help me to feel more
Founding Angels Care
00:08:51
Speaker
confident. So would it be fair to say that part of that confidence to shine or not being afraid to shine is also about
00:09:00
Speaker
as you said before, the vulnerability of knowing when to ask for help and knowing when to have that support around you, because it does take confidence to ask for help, especially if you have, you know, perfectionistic tendencies or, you know, everyone has different backgrounds. Some people are raised in a, you know, a village like community. Some people are raised to be quite autonomous. So would that be fair to say that not being afraid to shine is is also about knowing when to ask?
00:09:29
Speaker
for help and for what you need. I like how you wrote the word vulnerability. And I think, yeah, if you are able to refrain vulnerability, not like a mark, it is forever. If you're vulnerable now, you're vulnerable forever. No, no, it's just a moment when you build the resilience. It is true. Yeah. It's kind of like saying, yep, this is the moment when I am in my weakest or at my week, which should be in real weakest. And I might need some support.
00:09:59
Speaker
And look, it works both sides, right? When you see someone who is vulnerable, you just see this is the moment in their life. But in like five years, they would be so different. I'll just see it in them and be here for them. So it doesn't work one side. But if you're not able to ask for yourself, how are you able to help others?
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, I really liked that sentiment. That is a beautiful segue to another note that I had on how do you use this mantra to help other people see their light?
00:10:33
Speaker
With the background of Angel's care, it's really seeing bigger pictures. So say we work with families, with people who experienced loss in their life. And loss really puts you down to your lowest. And what it does, sometimes the pain is so big that you want to just like shrink all these emotions. You don't want to feel it. And then what you actually do by not letting yourself feel the pain,
00:11:02
Speaker
kind of don't allow yourself to feel any positive emotions that you might have as well. So what do we do? We kind of help to reach the good things via difficult experience. We create like what I do, I create space for people to share their pain for the only reason to empty the space for the good, to empty the space for the laughter, to empty the space for the happiness. And this is how I do this. So I kind of like let the heavy stuff
00:11:32
Speaker
being left at the space that we create in order for the good stuff to pop up in their life. You can't fill your cup with good things if it's already filled with darkness, right? So you're helping people empty the cup of darkness to allow that fresh cup. Yeah, and it's definitely more about what is next.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, incredible. Well, I'd love to go back a step if you'll let me so that our listeners can get an understanding of what Angel's Care is all about and how that came about. It's definitely the personal story. It's a story of personal loss. So back in 2018, my son was born. It's almost five years ago. And unfortunately, he was the baby who ride
00:12:21
Speaker
after being born, got into an eco-unit, and we were fighting for his life for four days, and we didn't manage. We couldn't do anything. But what happened then, there was like a double shock. So first shock was from losing
00:12:39
Speaker
the future, right, losing the future that I was imagining losing myself. And the other shock was how doctors were treating us, how doctors, irrespective of everything, were trying to save myself and save my husband from this mental trauma for
00:12:57
Speaker
It's like an enormous wave of grief, how they were preparing us for everything. So when you think about the name Angels Care, it's not about babies who have passed away. It's about health care professionals who are providing the care, like in, I don't know, guardian angels. That was just a metaphor that we had when we were naming the organization. And then incredible things started happening to us after two weeks, even after loss. So we really had double shock.
00:13:27
Speaker
The first you have thought, right? Then you have word. Then your destiny is being shaped. So we had a thought that because of the support that we received, we're not going to hide our story. We will share it. We will tell our friends that we experienced loss. We will tell our relatives. We'll tell everyone what happened to our family. And when we started sharing, the number of my closest, like people who are so close to me, who started sharing their stories was enormous.
00:13:56
Speaker
So you had no idea that so many other people had experienced this loss. I had no idea because it was such a stigma, it was such a shame that people were just not sharing it. And I don't think that this is culturally just about where you were in the Ukraine. I imagine I've never experienced that loss and I'm really sorry to hear about that loss because I know people that have experienced loss and just how overwhelming it is.
00:14:20
Speaker
But I certainly understand in Australia, it's the same sort of challenge and I know there's a lot of organisations working towards changing that. But it sort of seems like something that I imagine would be universal across the world. It is universal. It is universal. It's just that some societies do better than others.
00:14:38
Speaker
So between Ukraine and Australia, there's still what I see like 40 year gap, but the journey is so slow because it's actually changing the way we see the trauma itself, the way we treat people with loss and it's hard. It's complex. It's not one sided.
00:14:58
Speaker
It was the first step when I realized, wait, we had the support. And it was so hard for us because we were in the hospital, one of the best hospitals in Western Australia. And that was the hospital where all bereavement support started 40 years ago. Wow.
00:15:15
Speaker
This is something that we learned later. And I just thought, how about all these people who had zero support? And that was in Ukraine. And then somehow, we had a thought. The first thought was, we're going to share our story. And then we started doing this. And second thought was, we need to make sure that people in Ukraine who go through the loss of the baby receive support.
00:15:41
Speaker
And then we started sharing it. And once we started sharing it, we realized that people around us who surround us in Western Australia were people who were studying Berlin support 40 years ago. And they were like, we know how to do this. We will just share it with you. These are the problems you will face. These are the things you need to do. Don't do this, do that. And that's interesting setting up the organization.
00:16:04
Speaker
It is. They helped us to predict what can go wrong, what challenges we might face, but they were extremely supportive. So it was incredible. We didn't know we have these people in our environment, but once we started sharing it, people started saying, oh, look, actually, I know something about it.
00:16:22
Speaker
And then we met since I met since as the bereavement support group attendees. So I was just like visiting support groups and we just asked them, can we translate your brochures? Can we do this? So we just, we never thought about building something big.
00:16:38
Speaker
until it became big. So that is the magic about Angel's Care. I would never choose this topic if you asked me like seven years ago. I would be like, no, startups, tech, artificial intelligence, whatever, but not grave, grieving loss, trauma, healthcare, maternity. It's such a foreign topics to me back then. Yeah. And so much bravery, I suppose, in that when you start something like this,
00:17:04
Speaker
you have to be prepared to constantly relive that trauma in discussion. So if you talk about the confidence to shine, the generosity in spirit from you and your husband, and I imagine other people involved in the organization that's experienced that, there's such a generosity of spirit in having to go through that time and time again, knowing that there's a little part of you that must break every time you think about it.
00:17:31
Speaker
true. You know, when we were, when we were starting, I thought that I won't be able to do this because it's too hard. So when we were building an organization, we were building it with a thought that we will leave it in one year or so. Right. Yeah. And on the baton to someone else. Exactly. But in a year, in two years, now in four years, I realized this is such a fulfilling, like,
00:17:55
Speaker
This is my mission and I'm happy for other people to join. We are always like volunteers are always welcome. Advisors are always welcome. We don't have any ego around this organization. It's really like it's really challenging. So if people can help, they always welcome. But
00:18:12
Speaker
I realized I have enough strength to do this. I mean, like this topic is not kind of destroying me as it does for many people. Yeah. I imagine probably, you know, part of it's quite cathartic in, in that long-term healing process. 100%. Wow. It's absolutely incredible. I want to talk a little bit about significant moments or pivotal moments for you in creating Agile's Care. So we just spoke about obviously the, the inception, but
00:18:41
Speaker
Who was it that you looked up to outside of the Australian organisation? Did you have support in the Ukraine or was there someone that was really, you know, that sort of shining light for you?
00:18:53
Speaker
That is incredible because it wasn't someone who you would think you look at like some star, someone big. It was my grandma. Wow. Well, do you know the powers of grandparents? Yeah. So when we came and we started sharing that we want to start Enjiskare, we already had a website. So Enjiskare started in Australia.
00:19:15
Speaker
actually. So we published first article here. We started Facebook page here. When we came to Ukraine, started sharing it with our friends, we were receiving like, you know, like a funny look, like move on. Well, they will move on eventually.
00:19:31
Speaker
You know, like it's, it's, it's a strange, it's like this, how would you say it really? It's like, I feel sorry for you. Yeah. It's an uncomfortable space for other people to be in, not for the people grieving, but potentially for other people. Yeah. And even I was facing people and people were like, looking at me, I was sharing what I want to do. And they're like, everything will be right. Everything will be right.
00:19:54
Speaker
And you're like, you hear this and you understand, well, this is not about me at the moment. Of course, everything will be all right. This is the story of my loss, a story without happy end, but I know we'll have many other stories. But then when I shared this with my grandma, she was like, do you remember I wanted to give a present for my great, great son, but he's lost. So I want to donate money for Angel's Care.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah. And that was like the moment when I realized, oh my God, I actually have support. And if she sees it this way, this is the most important person who I
Balancing Career and Passion
00:20:31
Speaker
can look at. She was like one of your first investors. She funded it, the solo crowdfunding. She was. And it was incredible. So what we did, we actually printed
00:20:40
Speaker
like a therapeutic postcard that we're talking about loss and about healing and about future after loss. There's like free cards. One was saying, you're always in my heart. One was saying, you know, there is the rainbow after the storm. And one was saying that you build your life after loss. So I think we printed 1000 of them.
00:21:01
Speaker
Wow. And these refer at the hospital, so they're available when parents are going through this loss. Exactly. And that was the massive pivot for me. So sometimes our guru, our, you know, like someone to look after is so close to us and is someone who we might never thought of, like, it's not necessary. Where the streets was coming from. That's incredible. She is my star. So what a grandma.
00:21:24
Speaker
I also want to ask about how you've balanced something so intense with working life. You have a career, you've got a successful career. How have you managed from inception to now to try and find balance or have you not? That's perfectly fine, no judgment.
00:21:44
Speaker
I did them for the first two years. So first two years were hard, were like extremely hard. I even put myself into financial trouble because I was focusing too much on AngelScare. But AngelScare is purely volunteering and giving. But the interesting thing is that one builds the other. So where I am, what's my career journey? It's actually human centric design. And AngelScare is the biggest human centric design project I ever made.
00:22:12
Speaker
What a beautiful case study. You can't get a better case study than that. That is true. Empathy, generosity, finding solutions in non-linear ways. That is true. And Angel's Care became like a place where strengths of myself and strengths of my husband, he's in branding.
00:22:34
Speaker
his marketing, they just found the best possible realization ever. So we were just doing what we are good at and finding people who are good at other things. So we're finding psychotherapists, we're translating international standards. We're not creating by ourselves what we don't know and what is kind of we were not reinventing bicycle, but we were giving what is strong from our side. We were co-creating with doctors. We had so many workshops when
00:23:02
Speaker
Everyone was crying obviously. The journey mapping would have been quite an emotional process. Yes, but we've done it all. Sort of one build the other one and then they just build on top of the other and I keep developing and just care and keep growing my skills at the same time which is... You're feeding into each other. It does. Melting into each other.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, the more practical things here, I actually try to have time for everything. I try not to mix things, right? So if I have to work, say, eight hours a day, I would make sure that one hour in the evening after I take a rest, walk with my dogs or, you know, just like have this calm moment. I spend one hour doing it, just care.
00:23:48
Speaker
And also, I always think, what am I good at? What am I fast at? And what am I not good at? And what can I delegate? So delegating is the key. Otherwise, I just won't be capable to do this. So team is important, like finding your strengths and doing only what you're really good at and giving the opportunity for others to help, to support. That's how you manage to balance it. Which sort of just picks up on what you were saying before about
00:24:15
Speaker
The confidence to shine is also about knowing when to ask for help and when to also say, you know what, this is what I'm really good at. Yes, I can probably do those other things, but it's not the best utilization of my time. So by allowing yourself that one hour, what is the best thing that you can do with that one hour? It makes you think differently. It makes you think differently.
00:24:37
Speaker
just like essence, just the top things. I can give you an example, right? Yeah, please do. What do you mean? So say I know a lot about grief and grieving. I read like tons of books and because this knowledge is available in English, we don't have many people in Ukraine who are able to. And say, of course, we communicate from the agency. Of course, we write articles. Of course, we have to
00:25:03
Speaker
be present and always provide some new content for people to lean on it. And my team, they just called me, do you mind writing an article about stigma? They said, well, yeah, I can. But I'm not good in writing actual article. I just have the knowledge. So what if I put the key to this? What if I put the main things? And then we have someone who will actually frame it. I'm happy to give a link to the research. I'm happy to share the knowledge. But I'm not good in putting the article together.
00:25:33
Speaker
So what I do in one hour, I'll just pull together the information that we send it to our journalists who are from our community, who know this topic, who experience loss as well. And they just turn it into amazing articles and we publish them. So I do 30% of work. Then it's been done by someone else, but it's packaged amazingly. So this is how I'm trying to do even a little things. I'm a source of knowledge.
00:26:03
Speaker
But I'm not a writer. How can we make it work? Yeah. And part of that, I feel, also comes from the maturity of knowing what am I actually really good at? How do I avoid burnout, which, by the way, is like a perpetual task
00:26:19
Speaker
for me because I take on always too much and I'm, you know, every day trying to remind myself of what are you, where are you adding the most value and how do you make sure that you don't just work 24 hours a day all the time. I really love that you have blended
00:26:38
Speaker
the the theory of service design and use that to to meld into this trauma and healing and education for angels care i mean what a beautiful gift that skill is to be able to blend those two important things for your life together
00:26:54
Speaker
I know I still sometimes don't believe anything. I have a feeling sometimes that Angerscare was meant to be. My husband and I, we were just at the right moment, the right time, and it all happened. It's incredible. And did you study service design, or is that something you sort of fell into?
00:27:11
Speaker
So I didn't study. I was in business development marketing and in 2017, I actually met someone from UK. His name is Steve Lee and he is a service designer. And we just had a talk in a coffee shop in Ukraine, my hometown. We were talking about like, what is he doing? And he shared with me what a service design, what is he doing? And I was like, this is it. I love it. Interesting. Tell me more. And you went down that rabbit hole of learning.
00:27:41
Speaker
I decided I made a decision that I'm making a pivot and I'm actually adding the skills. So it's complementary skills. If you are in the, if you have business background, right? If you've been developing brands, I was in startup world. It's still the same, right? It's very similar instruments. It's just putting it all into a different context. That's another story. I started looking for where I can study, but in Ukraine, we didn't really have any proper service design school. So when I was in Australia in 2018,
00:28:11
Speaker
my intention was to have it made me and start service design course while I'm on my maternity leave. And when I experienced loss, my thought was I'm not giving up. I lost my son. I don't want to lose my life. I don't want to lose my dreams. I don't want to lose everything else. And I still joined the course and I still started doing this. And when I was doing this, I was doing it already on angels care.
Being a Brand Boss
00:28:37
Speaker
So I was like, okay, ecosystem map.
00:28:40
Speaker
Okay. You had a practical case study to apply it to. I have no idea how people were like checking, you know, like when you study people are reading your project. I have no idea how they were feeling about it. But yeah, so even though I knew instruments before, even though I knew a lot about service design, the actual study
00:29:05
Speaker
I was doing already in combination, practice with and just care. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. It's a really incredible story and journey. And as I said before, a woman of many hats.
00:29:19
Speaker
I want to talk to you about being a brand boss and what that means for you. And I suppose I'll give you a bit of context around when we talked about starting this podcast and we were talking about my mantra of bite big. And that's a philosophy that I've had with me from a very young age. So I take things on and I reach high and then I work out how to do it later.
00:29:44
Speaker
I find the skills, I do the learning, I reach high and then I work out how to do it later. And certainly when I was starting my business and lots of people were saying, cause I was a single parent when I started my business and lots of people were saying, just go and get a stable job. What are you doing trying to, I was looking at taking on really big high profile clients and like, what are you doing? Just go and get a job, get your superannuation. I'm like, no, I'm just gonna reach up, doesn't work. I'll go and get a job after, it doesn't work.
00:30:13
Speaker
So the idea of fight big boss women leading big brands was less about seeing branding from, you know, traditional commercial sense and more about being the boss of something's important. And that's what I thought when, when someone suggested to talk to you and I looked at your organization, Angels Care, and I thought, this is not about commercial branding. This is about a brand that has meaning and impact at a much deeper, richer level.
00:30:42
Speaker
So I wanted to ask, it was a long way of getting to an actual question, which is how do you feel about the term being your own boss? And what does that mean to you to have this organization?
00:30:53
Speaker
I think that, you know, it's again journey, but it's about building your own path to me being a boss. It's about, okay, never walked here before. Let's give it a go. And it's very similar to what you're saying. It's just under very different light. So when I started with Angel's Care,
00:31:20
Speaker
the thing that I wanted to do I wanted to create space for others as well to build and just care so I didn't want to do it myself purely and there were other people who were doing similar things in Ukraine who were providing supports but they were by themselves they didn't have any power and I thought if I'm building and just care first of all I'm ready to be at the front for the flag
00:31:44
Speaker
beginning like front of the column, don't know how it works, but we'll try. But then I thought I want to create the environment where others can strive as well, where others can join and do big things together. So that's what being a boss means to you? To me, it's like nurturing talents of others and not being afraid of leading them. I love that sentiment. Can you think of a time where in this journey you've
00:32:11
Speaker
wanted to give up or you felt like that path or that being your own boss was just, it was too much.
00:32:20
Speaker
I'm constantly, I'm constantly. So probably after, after I think one and a half year, I had like a crisis moment when I realized it's just too much. I'm like trying so hard. Things don't work. I didn't know that things in order, in order for things to work any time. So I was like, we spent one year and a half and still like no results.
00:32:48
Speaker
white saw said I didn't think about it and I really had a moment when I wanted to give up and I said I'm taking one month break this is horrible not doing it anymore so I went to spend one month in mountains just relaxing drinking herbal tea and not thinking about anything and then in a month I realized that I miss and just care so much I need to go home and we'll do this and we'll do this and we'll do that
00:33:11
Speaker
All the, you know, it's during that downtime, my experience is when I'm feeling overwhelmed by just, you know, cause I bite too big and I've got too much to do. The irony is that downtime just allows the brain to then have those creative sparks. And if you're continually on the hamster wheel, you don't get that inspiration to happen.
00:33:38
Speaker
True, true. And then, you know, what happened? So I had this moment of crisis. Everyone was shocked what's going on. Or in an organization, like people who are part of our team, they rely on me and they think that I am like a glue, that I'm keeping it all together. Though I don't think this way. So it was like, I don't like the article.
00:34:01
Speaker
True, true. What's wrong with her? And then, you know, then we came to the agreement that it's fine to complain. And I said, like, I think that Angel's Care will forgive me if I'd be saying, giving up is impossible.
Managing Emotions and Growth
00:34:14
Speaker
It will never work. And we allow ourselves, like, we allow everyone to have this momentum. We are
00:34:21
Speaker
absolutely comfortable with anyone making a step back when they need it. We are absolutely comfortable about complaining about things. I think generally speaking, complain is the only way to make things better. Yes, complain, get to the zone of discomfort. It's all good. It's all part of the journey. And yeah, I have this moments when I know that I need to make a step back.
00:34:42
Speaker
I have this moments when I know that I'm complaining and it's a little bit too much. Maybe I shouldn't, but I know that my team, my tribe will forgive me. And I think it's just normal. Yeah, it's an outlet, right? As long as you don't sit in that space for too long, but also if you don't allow the honesty of that frustration to come out, you end up with deep seated pent up frustration, which ultimately leads to a nervous breakdown.
00:35:12
Speaker
of some description. Burn out anything like, you know, compassion, fatigue or whatever. It's, it's so many things. So if you have this anger, I think generally speaking anger or like the, I stop at the anger. I don't know further. I'll allow myself to express anger, but I think anger has a lot of energy in it. So if I'm angry, things don't work.
00:35:34
Speaker
We will never change this to Ukraine. It's too hard, this and that. I love it to be. I love myself to complain. I love myself to make a step back and then realize, okay, I'm recharged and ready to. I'm ready to continue. I'm ready to go now. That's incredible.
00:35:53
Speaker
I want to talk about your B moment. We ask all of our guests. It's only episode three, so I've only asked two other people. What's been your biggest B moment and what's been that impact for you?
00:36:09
Speaker
So I would say that I have four B moments. Some were always natural to me. Some are the B moments that I developed. So the one that I developed is belief. Belief in your good, right? So it's not about
00:36:26
Speaker
It's not about like some superstitious belief. I don't know. Like people have different understanding of the word belief, but say you're living the life that is not a hundred percent like what you would imagine. Believe that there is this good life for you. Believe there is your good belief. If you are into relationship, believe there are good relationship for you. If you're into career, believe you will build this. So this is the first thing.
00:36:53
Speaker
The second B that was supernatural for me, and I have no idea how I developed this, it was with me from the childhood, is break. I think it's like a Shiva, you know, he destroys in order for things to appear. This is purely me, this is my energy. I am easy in breaking things, I'm easy in changing locations, changing jobs.
00:37:19
Speaker
Breaking habits that don't serve me, breaking values that don't serve me, anything that doesn't work for me. I know that then I'll have to start from the beginning, but if it doesn't work for me now, or it doesn't have a chance to work, I'll break and change it.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's so many biases attached to not breaking, right? Expectations. If you think about, you know, societal structures, gender roles, like anything, if it's not broken, it's a bit of a problem. It is true. And probably my ability to break is, you know, I'm from Ukraine where we are even more, how do you say it, like conservative. Yes.
00:38:02
Speaker
So I saw many people struggling because they were not bold enough to make a decision to move. And maybe there was behind the corner their happy day, but they decided to struggle forever. They didn't change jobs. They didn't change partners. I don't know. It sounds like you change partners. They didn't choose the right partners. I've given that advice to many friends.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, why we celebrate on the wedding. Why do we celebrate separation? It actually sometimes brings to good outcomes. Sorry to say it here. That's true. The other one is the one that I build as well. It's build. Build yourself. I never thought consciously, like if you were to ask me seven years ago, I wouldn't know how to build yourself. Now I think consciously, what do I know? What is my ambition? What do I need to learn in order to get there? What do I need to do in order to get there?
00:38:52
Speaker
So build is important element, read books like that, not just any books, but those who, those that will, you know, bring you closer to where you want to go. Then if you believe in yourself, right? Believe that there is your good. If you break things that hold you, if you build things that are missing or even built from your past traumas, right? Then you have a chance to become.
00:39:18
Speaker
And this is, I think, the purpose of our living is to become who we are meant to be. This is this light in you and shine. It's about becoming. So it's a journey to become. You don't just become. You have to work on this and you probably will never become. It's a journey of becoming. But I think it's a beautiful path.
00:39:38
Speaker
I think if you write a book, you should call it, believe, break, build, become. There you go. That's a good idea. Yeah. I'll help you with the book cover. All right. Our closing questions is, I wish I'd read. Now, given we're in a modern day, it could be, I wish I'd listened to, but what is something that you wish that you could tell your younger self to listen to or to read that's really motivated you?
00:40:08
Speaker
There are three things that are in this area. So first one is I would tell myself, know your strengths and don't stress out about your weaknesses. You know, you might never be good in climbing trees. If you like a fish or, you know, I'm definitely the fish. I'm not good in climbing trees. So.
00:40:26
Speaker
But just know your skills, do some personality tests, whatever. Just understand what you're good at. So I've done this amazing test called Call back. You will pay for this. It's like a personality test, but it shows you what other things you need to do first. So appear that I'm a creative person, but I'm horrible with synthesizing.
00:40:44
Speaker
constantly being upset that I cannot, why I cannot synthesize, why people can create boring spreadsheet I cannot, like I thought that sometimes wrong with me. I cannot read a spreadsheet at all, unless it's color coded and got lots of beginnings. Same here, same here, just like horrible. But knowing this,
00:41:01
Speaker
takes a lot of pressure out of yourself. So this was the first thing, like know yourself, learn what your strengths and build on top of them rather than build on top of your weaknesses. The second thing is, if I look at the question, if I think about this question, I read so much, but I was never doing anything. So I actually do things that you read, right? That's incredible. If they write a book and everyone says it's the best book in the world, we'll try doing something that is in this book. Don't just read it and say,
00:41:31
Speaker
beautiful concept. Yeah, Atmic have an awesome book, but I'm not going to do anything. It doesn't work. So for like 30 something years, I was just reading. I was reading a lot, but I was never doing anything. And now I started doing and I'm just like, wow, putting it in action. Power of little steps is actually
00:41:48
Speaker
powerful. So that was the second thing. And one more is money. I think generally speaking, we are so bad with our money. That is the thing that I would tell myself when I was 20 in Natalia, learn about money, learn about investment, read books about money, because it shapes
00:42:11
Speaker
a lot of things that you do and it makes you actually making sometimes better life decisions. I've done quite a few poor decisions with my money because I have no idea how money works. Financial literacy is one of the key underdeveloped areas of education globally, I think, and especially for women because we know that women are impacted the most by financial illiteracy.
Conclusion and Takeaways
00:42:35
Speaker
The thing with money, as you said, is there's some, you know, short term mistakes that people can make that are little. So, you know, you've overpaid for a pair of shoes. But you can also make some decisions when you're younger that have lifelong impacts to, you know, your credit rating or your ability to borrow. It's quite incredible.
00:42:56
Speaker
It is incredible in what I think as well. It changes what you do and how you act. Sometimes it actually makes you act smarter. So like, you know, for me, knowing my values, one of my values is my craft. Well, if I'm selling my craft, I want to sell it expensive, right? I don't want to sell it cheap.
00:43:17
Speaker
Exactly. You went for big brands. So it actually, it's not the core value at all. Money shouldn't be the core value. Money should be basic skill. If we know how our body works, if we know how to get from like station A to station B, how the tramp system works in Melbourne or whatever, we should know money. This is basic knowledge. And that is the thing that I would tell myself. Everything else I've done good, except knowing what are my strengths, except
00:43:47
Speaker
really doing rather than just reading and thinking that's an interesting concept we have here and money just for safety as the basic core skill that I think everyone should have here.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, they are three really important things. And when you write that book, you can talk about those as your key takeouts. Well, Natalia, that's the end of our time. And I've got to say, I could probably sit here for another hour and a half and talk to you. Thank you for being such a boss co-host today.
00:44:20
Speaker
and for sharing, you know, your version of biting big, but also, you know, it's a very personal journey for you. And I really appreciate the vulnerability in showing up today. And of course, I love the attribute of your mantra of not being afraid to shine. And some of the key takeouts I took in today's conversation were when you spoke about allowing other people to shine, and I think that's really, you know, transferring that mantra to influence other people is a really generous thing to do.
00:44:48
Speaker
I really love the sentiment of when you've never walked here before, just giving it a go. When we were talking about being, what does a boss mean to you? It means carving your own path. I thought that was a beautifully articulated sentiment. I think the core message though that I took out was the four B's and you've really raised the bar on when people answer that question now because
00:45:09
Speaker
because you had such a well-articulated response, but you're believing good about breaking, about building and about becoming. I mean, I think there are absolutely incredible sentiments for people to take away. And I really thank you for your time and your generosity. Well, thank you for creating a space, for sharing this. That is extremely valuable for me as well. Well, you're welcome.
00:45:31
Speaker
And we know, you know, one of the things about Biting Big, this is a podcast that's produced and made by women for women. And to show our gratitude, we donate $500 on behalf of all of our guests to their chosen charities. And it will be no surprise that the two charities you've chosen is Angels Care and SANS. And SANS is the local Australian bereavement organisation that inspired you and supported you on your journey. So we'll definitely make those donations.
00:45:59
Speaker
Is there anything else that I've missed or that you'd like to say about those organizations? I think one incredible thing about both of these organizations that they are built by just like average person without any superpowers that we think about. You know, when we think about success, we don't frame it this way. We don't think that these are successful people or this are
00:46:25
Speaker
These are incredible things that they do. We kind of have slightly wrong understanding. So when I think about SANS and then when I think about AngelCare and our volunteers, I just think that anyone can, you know, be incredible. And anyone has so much in them. It's just a matter of finding this right path that works for you. So my appreciation for SANS for
00:46:53
Speaker
doing this and for all the volunteers in SANS for being here for 40 years and inspiring others. Helping one can change the, you know, they helped us, they helped two people and now we're changing the whole country. And now you help thousands of people. So this is how it works. Well, thank you. I've been your host, Amber Bonnie, and until the next episode, I hope you bite big and chew like hell. Thank you. Thank you.