How Do You Decide with Megan Stafford

A LIVE podcast session recorded at the Young Beef Producers' Forum in Roma on 18 November 2022 with Alicia McClymont from Antola Trading and Sam Fryer from Black Box Co. Alicia and Sam talk about the decision to diversify their beef businesses in different ways: Alicia splitting her time between Bondi where she designs for her fashion business and Richmond in NW Queensland where she runs her beef property, and Sam opting to expand his knowledge through university, external training and now as an Account Manager at Black Box Co. This episode is, at its heart, about how to balance two things: external expectations and inner desires. In this context, it applies to business and is also a great conversation for anyone trying to weigh up between two options. Maybe you can have both?! **SHOW NOTES** ALERT: My first show notes with links to discussion points Young Beef Producers’ Forum: http://www.ybpf.com.au/ Antola Trading: http://www.antolatrading.com/ Black Box Co: http://www.blackboxco.com.au/ Sam Fryer’s episodes on Humans of Agriculture podcast: Episode 1 (Apple): http://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/36-hoa-im-lucky-with-sam-fryer/id1505040264?i=1000505829802 Episode 1 (Spotify): http://open.spotify.com/episode/6ubD9WLBqqvkJMukTTredJ?si=yeEHr5oXTIyetbMu05em3A Episode 2: http://humansofagriculture.com/episode/a-simple-call-to-check-in-on-a-mate-with-sam-fryer/ Islands in the Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQW7I62TNOw

The podcast is ONE! To celebrate, I jump behind the mic to talk about all things podcast: why I decided to make a podcast, how I did it, and the highs and lows in between.

Jo McNicol Feirclough is what we call a character. But I think that’s being too simplistic. Because there’s a whole lot to Jo. She is, as we all are, multi-dimensional. The wonderful thing about Jo is that she’s direct about that fact. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She tells it how it is. And we often don’t know what to do with that, so we laugh and say, “What a character.” But, what I’m interested in is what makes people who they are, and in this episode, you are going to get that in a big way! For example, Jo was hit by a bus. Yes, I’m serious. A big old bus in Townsville knocked her down on King’s Road. She fractured two discs. That story is something we just mention in passing in this conversation. Because there was just so many other things to unpack. The same can be said about Jo’s cervical cancer diagnosis. So, How Do You Decide what to cut? Well, when you run a podcast exploring that question you get bold enough to cut out pretty big events like getting hit by a bus and cancer. Not because they weren’t important. But because what I’ve kept will, I trust, show the many sides of Jo. If you’re worried that I’ve cut all the good anecdotes, let me tell you what remains: there’s Jo getting stabbed by her then-husband, there are three other cancer diagnoses, there’s family tensions and trauma. I hope you’re getting the picture: this episode, the last of Season 1, is Big. Let’s get to it.

Robyn Russell grew up on Charlotte Plains, near Cunnamulla, in south-west Queensland. The property has been in her family now for 100 years. A century of ownership, with Robyn at the helm (not the entire time, of course - she's too young for that!). It’s not the first time she has been the sole operator keeping Charlotte Plains running. Indeed, she and her husband Reid spent four years running their family operations – Robyn’s at Charlotte Plains and Reid’s at Plain Creek, south of Charters Towers – separately and together. There’s a bit of distance between the two places, but they were determined to make it work, and they did. Charlotte Plains is the backdrop for a lot of this conversation. It was where Robyn first met Reid, where their romance blossomed and waned and blossomed again over a 7-year courtship, and it’s been the predominant place she’s called home for her +70 years. In this conversation, we talk about Robyn’s two great loves: Reid and Charlotte Plains. Reid died in 2011. It meant a great deal of change for Robyn. Charlotte Plains has called for Robyn to similarly adjust over seasons of drought. We also talk about Robyn’s time travelling overseas in her twenties – it’s not the story of a global jaunt we are used to today. We talk about life away from the land, struggling with succession, and how Robyn bought her first home by door knocking in the neighbourhood.

In 2008, Rob was in a helicopter accident on a remote station in the Northern Territory, Suplejack Downs Station. If you want to define remote, the closest centre Alice Springs is +700km away. So, you can imagine the tension when Rob found himself in a crashed chopper, paralysed, and unbeknownst to him, a C4-quadriplegic. Making decisions suddenly became very important to all involved: Rob's life counted on every single one. In this episode, we talk about the day of the accident, the quick-thinking of a mine medic, the generosity of fellow Territorians, and the unfolding realisation that their lives would never be the same. This is a conversation with Rob and his wife, Sarah, who had trained as a nurse prior to the accident. High school sweethearts, business partners and parents, Rob and Sarah are great mates as well as husband and wife. In this conversation, they are very candid about what life is like now: from finding care support workers, navigating how to discipline kids when you're wheelchair-bound, through to those moments of forgetting your own physical limits. We cover a lot of ground, and yet we only skimmed the surface. Luckily, Rob wrote a book with Carl Curtain "When The Dust Settles" that can be purchased online as an eBook with limited hard copies.

Can you imagine being the only teacher in a school located in remote North Queensland? Can you imagine being that teacher and finding your bed is on the school veranda, you've got to dig your own toilet, and your contract end date is unknown? If you are Viv Chapman, you can imagine it clearly because, well, he lived it. For the rest of you, you'll have to listen to his story and find out what happened next. This is a story set largely around Viv's time teaching in the small town of Malbon, a railway siding some 60km south of Cloncurry in 1969. While his time was brief at Malbon, the months spent there led Viv to later be chosen from more than 250 people to teach in New Zealand. In this conversation, we talk about Viv's career teaching in his various roles as teacher, principal, pastor. His memories are supported by his wife Lyn, who is included in the interview. This episode is for those who want to know what a lifetime of teaching can teach us about how to live.

Community and contribution have been major factors when it comes to decision-making for this week's guest, Carmel Williams. Carmel worked for Australia Post for 27 years in Charleville. She retired earlier this week. But, away from work, Carmel has been heavily involved in the community of Charleville: on committees, helping to cater for events, and doing her part to keep the community spirit out there alive. In this conversation, we talk about where that community spirit came from, her time at Australia Post, including the delicate balance required when it comes to managing a team, and her decision to retire. Those grappling with retirement, or taking a step back - this episode is for you. It's also for all of us. Whether you are shy or love the spotlight, contribution is something you can choose, or often, that can choose you. And, maybe, if you are like Carmel, it might even come to define you in the eyes of many.

If you've ever thought to yourself: life would be so much better if I lived (enter place name), this episode is for you. Jen Kealey and her husband Chook moved to Walcha in the New England region of NSW in late 2008. It was a very deliberate choice, and one they'd taken their time with. They'd sat down with a list of things they wanted from the place they'd call home, opened a map of Australia, and starting to make a list of places that lined up with their first list. In this conversation, Jen and I talk about how they made that decision to move to Walcha, the isolation she felt upon arriving, and how she overcame that. We also talk about her time working at youth organisation, Backtrack, burnout, and how sometimes the hardest choice is choosing to take care of yourself and stepping back.

Valerie Coates' story hinges on the three-and-a-half years she spent working in the Royal Australian Air Force, or RAAF. A lesbian, Val’s sexuality was something she knew to hide in the 1960s for her own safety. She was outed in the worst way when someone she worked with told the military police that Val was a lesbian. Val was subjected to hours of interrogation and dismissed from the Air Force. The trauma of that experience has never left Val. It is an example of the potency of our experiences. Of how something that happened in minutes can stick with us for months, years, our whole life. In this conversation, we discuss Val’s childhood, which included a move to Kenya at the age of nine, that interrogation, and about sexuality, love, and family.

A Kiwi shearer turned Aussie healer. What does that mean? Find out this week on the podcast with Terry Slack. Terry was born in NZ with the expectation he would take over the family farm. Instead, life took him down other paths: from shearing to running a spiritualist church and onto Australia where he worked as a masseur and clairvoyant. In this conversation, we discuss how he decided to leave the farm, beliefs, spirituality, and how to face difficult situations. You will enjoy this conversation if you are curious and/or trying to come to terms with unfavourable circumstances, otherwise known as life. The conversation starts with Terry’s first conscious memory when he was 4 years old and had pneumonia.