#awinewith Tanya Rutherford
MEET Tanya, Founder of Queen Be
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Tanya, welcome to Spark tv. Woo. Oh, I'm so excited to have you here. I literally just said before we hit record that you and I have known each other for years now through different iterations of Spark, and I love what you do and I love how you show up for the Spark community, but you've never been on the podcast, so No, I know. This is
Tanya Rutherford (00:27):
It. How fun. I love listening to it if that counts, because it's perfect amount of time for me to drive into town, so I always get to hear something new and listen to some really amazing women, which is always awesome.
Danielle Lewis (00:39):
Oh, I love it. Well, now you are the amazing woman who's going to share her story, so that's exciting.
Tanya Rutherford (00:48):
Always.
Danielle Lewis (00:49):
Let's do it. So let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Tanya Rutherford (00:54):
Okay. So I'm Tanya Rutherford. My social enterprise, certified social enterprise is called Learn, grow, become, and that sort of started out as really a space where I could host my learn to learn programs, which is really helping students, particularly adult learners, to get their heads in the right space, understand how they learn how their brain works, and build their confidence before going back to study and move on a few years from there. And I got really fed up with trying to navigate the world of universities and did a lot of soul searching and came back to something that's kind of been sitting on my periphery for quite a while, which was supporting women. And because of where I'm at in my life journey, menopause seemed to be a really good topic to start with. So when I was looking at it originally and starting to do the research, there wasn't much around this year.
(01:58):
It feels like everything's starting to change and that topic is really front and center, which is absolutely awesome. And so now I have Queen Bee, which is my menopause platform, and it's really about educating, supporting women and also non-binary and trans folk who don't identify but have been born with ovaries. So they're still going through the hormonal challenges, but also the partners and the work colleagues and the workplaces because we're like 20% of the workforce right now. So it's important that we're actually all working together. And what benefits menopausal women benefits everyone because those kind of adjustments that we talk about just make working life so much better for every person involved. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at at the moment.
Danielle Lewis (02:54):
So we can educate my husband on why I cry all the time.
Tanya Rutherford (02:59):
Yes, you can. Lots of reasons, but one of them is probably hormonal
Danielle Lewis (03:04):
Bloody hell. No, I love it so much. I think it is so, so important. And it's really interesting that you say that there has been a lot more conversation over the last 12 months. I actually think that's because you are so heavily in the space now that you notice it so much because possibly I still think there's not enough conversations. So I'm so excited that you are building this community and supporting women because we need it. We really need it.
Tanya Rutherford (03:32):
I ran a workshop for our local regional women's network, the other, well last week actually, and the first half of the presentation, when I'm talking all about what it is and all that sort of thing, it was just stunned silence. They were just sitting there in shock and I'm like, oh dear, this probably isn't a good thing. But I probably started talking about symptoms and they're like, oh my God, I get that. Oh yeah. So then all the energy came in the room, but the fact that so many women there was 40, they just didn't know. And some of them had gone through menopause and they were like, oh my God, that was me. And I didn't realize that that was what it was or that this happened. And yeah, I think you're right also because all the people I'm connecting with now on LinkedIn, which is one of my main platforms, are all people who are in that space. So all I'm seeing is they're posting, so it feels like everyone's talking about it, but yeah, maybe not.
Danielle Lewis (04:29):
No, I think the more conversation that we can have, the better. Because to your point of that person in the audience, it was like, oh my God, that was me. I feel like there's a lot of women who are experiencing hormonal changes who are like, I'm going crazy and they're not going crazy. Their body is changing and they're still trying to operate in their old, I can do anything. I can do everything kind of mentality and not supporting their body through that transition. Maybe that's a good little thing to just put a pin in. What is it going on? What are some of the symptoms, how might we be affected as women going through this period?
Tanya Rutherford (05:13):
Yeah, it's a huge one and I think it's one that it's easy to underestimate because so many of the symptoms that we experience that can be related to perimenopause can also be related to other things as well. So when you're starting to experience things, it's always worth getting it checked out, but your doctor's not really able to say, yes, it's perimenopause. They can say No, it's not something else. But that perimenopause thing, there isn't a diagnostic test. It's really the same. Okay, well I'm not feeling like who I am, who I normally am. I might be feeling like I'm going crazy. I might be feeling like I'm just an emotional disaster. You could be getting depression or more depression than you've had before. Anxiety was a huge one for me early on. Not sleeping well, restless legs. I hate that thing. I can tell you a funny story about solving that too, by the way. Please, I'll come to that later. Come back to that later. I'm going on with the symptoms. It can be dry, itchy skin. It can be existing conditions are getting worse. So if you've got mental health conditions or neurological conditions, the symptoms of those tend to get stronger and your medications may not be working as effectively.
(06:43):
So it's amazing how many different things that it can be. Hair loss, I'm just trying to think of all the ones I can think of right now. There's like 60 symptoms that we now know about
(06:57):
And
(06:57):
A lot of our doctors only know, maybe 12, but most of 'em kind of go, okay, hot flushes. Well, that's perimenopause. And how I got into this initially was when I went to my doctor. Now I'd had symptoms for so initially anxiety, which I was really fortunate. He didn't put me on anything really extreme. Some antianxiety medications are really nasty. And then I had the sleep was always a problem, but I had young kids, so maybe it was that. It was only when I had hot flashes when I was 47 and I went and saw him and he was like, oh, you are really young. Normally doesn't happen until 51. And it was like, that's really specific, like 51, it's like a tick box kind of thing. And so that's when I started doing a lot more research and the more I researched, the more I was like, oh my God, this has been me. Oh my God, this is why I think I lost my cousin to suicide when she was 44.
Danielle Lewis (08:03):
Wow. Holy shit. That's huge
Tanya Rutherford (08:06):
For us, for women. Our highest suicide rate is in this age bracket.
(08:13):
And a lot of that is I believe because we don't get the right information, we don't get the right support as you're saying, we feel like we're going crazy. Well, in her case, she had bipolar and whilst I wasn't in the space and I didn't know about it at the time like anything, but never heard of perimenopause, she went to her specialist and she was feeling like her brain wasn't functioning properly. Brain fog, huge symptom of perimenopause. And he was like, oh, well sorry, there's nothing much I can do. It's all that's about as good as it's going to get sort of thing. But that's the kind of thing because they don't have the training. So for our medical, our gps for example, they'd be lucky to get half an hour of training on menopause or on hormones. Now we as overbearing people if you like, we are fully about hormones that runs our whole body. That's what makes us from Venus and men from Mars is we have all these hormones constantly going on every part of our body, particularly our brains. And so when things are out of sync, everything goes out of whack
(09:39):
And it's just really hard to one, understand what's going to help make it better if you don't even know what's going on. Now what I do now, so where I've come from, I created after my meeting with the doctor and my research is I created some really basic infographics about what menopause and perimenopause was, symptoms and ages and all that sort of thing. And I actually emailed it to every GP in our local area, Rockhampton, who had an email address.
Danielle Lewis (10:24):
Oh my God, I love you. This is amazing.
Tanya Rutherford (10:28):
And I did that. And then the next time I went to the doctors and he said, how are you feeling? I said, I'm feeling menopause. He goes, oh, well no, actually it's perimenopause. And he started to tell me all these things and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to say anything. But whilst I didn't get a response from anyone, I'm glad it got read.
Danielle Lewis (10:48):
Absolutely.
Tanya Rutherford (10:49):
It's a big thing for a medical expert to admit that they don't know something,
Danielle Lewis (10:54):
Of course.
Tanya Rutherford (10:57):
But if they're prepared to learn, that is awesome. And so on our platform, which we've just relaunching at the moment, is that we have resources like that. We've got infographics, we've got resources that we're constantly building out. Even just getting to know your hormones, who is estrogen? She's your party girl. She's the one that's out there. She wants to get with it all. When you don't have her around, she's also anti-inflammatory. So when you don't have her around, you ache when you're feeling like that 80-year-old woman, that's because she's not at the party right now.
Danielle Lewis (11:38):
Wow.
Tanya Rutherford (11:39):
Come to the party progesterone. She's the one that kind of encourages us to cozy up and just take time out, particularly leading up to our period, but also at other times when we don't have her. I think that's why we start overdoing ourselves. We are not slowing down. We're not getting those indicators that, okay, well we just need to calm ourselves and snuggle up with a good book
Danielle Lewis (12:07):
In a blanket. Yeah. Can I have her all the time please. I just think it's so interesting because what I'm hearing is that whilst having a GP is fantastic, and I'm not saying don't do that. I do feel that we need to take our own body, our own health, our own wellness into our own hands and educate ourselves and advocate for ourselves a lot more than we might think.
Tanya Rutherford (12:40):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are the experts in ourselves and I think where the challenge lies is we've been so used to defaulting to someone who has a title as the expert, even though what they're an expert in is it's general practice, it's not annual practice, it's not D practice. So they only can operate from that general perspective. Now, a lot of the research that's been done in the past, it's been based on men. The pharmaceutical research was all based on men because hormones are difficult even when they do studies on rats and that they used to just use male rats even for female stuff because female rats were too complicated. And it's what hope do we have? I know, oh God, 1990s, they had to include women. Now if you think about it, man was on the moon in the sixties and we didn't start including women in pharmaceutical studies until the 1990s.
Danielle Lewis (13:46):
This is outrageous.
Tanya Rutherford (13:48):
I know, my God. And that's why I think there is starting to be a real groundswell, particularly with our generations because we are like, well, hang on a second, we're not putting up with this shit. And I think once we get the groundwork right, then the generations that come after us are going to be in really good stead.
Danielle Lewis (14:08):
Yeah, I love that so much because it's like, isn't it like a 10 year period? I heard somewhere that
Tanya Rutherford (14:16):
It can be either pretty much instant if you have surgical menopause, and that might be Well, that's when you get your hysterectomy. Yeah, you get your hysterectomy, you get your wound removed. But whether or not you get your ovaries removed, you're still more likely to go into it much sooner. But for the rest of us, if you are one of the 80% that get symptoms, it could be from two years to almost 20 in terms of the post menopause period as well. So yeah, I've been experiencing it for, well since I had my second child, possibly since I had my first, but you can still get pregnant during perimenopause for a long time. So I'm like, okay, is this ever going to end? And once you get your hot flushes, that's usually starting to get more towards the end of it anyway, because I'm totally over it. But there's so much still to learn. It really is.
Danielle Lewis (15:30):
And it's, gosh, even if it is one to two years, but even if it is up to 20 years, that is such a significant amount of your life, you've really got to take matters into your own hands and figure out how to live at your best during that time
Tanya Rutherford (15:51):
And not just during that time. Because what's happening now is because our hormones are depleting, what we do now sets up our health and wellbeing for the future. So if we're not looking after our bone strength, if we're not looking after our cognitive selves, those things decline really quickly once we get past that menopause phase. Oh
Danielle Lewis (16:17):
My God, this must be the theme for the day. So I was just chatting to somebody else and I was like, so I've got, I guess some aging people in my life. My parents are in their seventies. I was just on this holiday and I was hanging out with the in-laws who they've got a grandma who's nineties, and I am looking at all of these people and I'm like, oh my God, I've really got to start looking after myself. I really want to make sure when I am 70, 80, 90 that I am mobile, that I'm strong, that I'm coherent, all of these things. But I'm like, it starts now. I can't wait until I'm 70 to start doing things to support myself. I've really got to start doing it now. So this is such a good, I'm so glad we're having this conversation. This is right, the mindset that I'm in right now.
Tanya Rutherford (17:10):
Well then you would love, so when I do my menopause for Gen X and Y, one of the first pictures I put up is of the Golden Girls.
Danielle Lewis (17:22):
Oh,
Tanya Rutherford (17:22):
I love it. Now they were, would you believe they were in the early fifties? 50 doesn't look like that now, but that's why I think a lot of us associate menopause with old age because it used to look really old, but there was actually an episode where Blanche thought she was pregnant, but it turned out that she'd just gone over menopause. I'm like, oh, seriously? She just instantly went over and there was nothing else. Oh my God, that's so unfair. Wouldn't that be nice? What happened to the 10 years of pain?
Danielle Lewis (17:54):
Oh my gosh.
Tanya Rutherford (17:55):
But the other thing is that at this stage of our lives is we've got everything coming to a crux. It's like all the birds come home in a roost. If you've been working really hard, you're more likely to burn out at this age. You might have young children, might have teenage children, even better, you might have, as you said, aging parents career might be at its peak. All those things are all at this one point in time, and we're still trying to juggle everything because we think we've got to be Wonder Woman, but let's face this. Wonder Woman didn't have children, she didn't have a real pressing job. It's a different thing, but we're still trying to be everything. And this is the point in time where we actually have to start listening to our bodies. We have to start listening to our souls and saying, okay, it's okay to take the foot off the accelerator and just start focusing on what I need myself.
Danielle Lewis (18:52):
I love that. Do you have any practical strategies for women who are in this moment of life, what they should be thinking about eating, not eating, doing? Anything that would help?
Tanya Rutherford (19:09):
Yeah. So couple of things. Reducing caffeine. Dammit. Don't
Danielle Lewis (19:16):
You say why next? Don't
Tanya Rutherford (19:18):
You say why next? You know what? I have just found someone who does mid strength wine and it's really nice. I'm a red wine drinker, so Jen Pfeiffer, I get through naked wine. So just a bit of a promo for Jen, because she did a lot of work to come up with a wine that actually tasted like wine as opposed to something that they add great juice to.
Danielle Lewis (19:43):
I know. Well, I've tried non-alcoholic wines, and I'm like, this isn't what wine tastes like, so I don't
Tanya Rutherford (19:49):
Like it. No, but this is cool. So you are looking for alternatives. You're looking at, okay, well how can I make small adjustments to my lifestyle that are going to make things better
(20:01):
Without
(20:02):
Them feeling like it's not worth living anymore?
Danielle Lewis (20:06):
Yes.
Tanya Rutherford (20:08):
Which let's face it, if we take out too many good things, we're not going to want to live anymore. The other thing is definitely stopping smoking. If people are smoking, it's just not a good thing. And the other one probably to think about is refined sugar. So our bodies never evolved to cope with sugar. They evolved to cope with one glass of caffeine, one glass of wine or alcohol, a little bit of nicotine but not sugar. So the fact that we have sugar in so many bought things is a real problem for all of us. So thinking more about Whole Foods, I think. So what can you cook yourself? And I've always been a big one for cooking a meal and then freezing sections for the week so that you managing what you need. Mediterranean diet is the gold standard, so not too much meat, lots of fresh salad vegetables, but again, it is just listening to what your body needs. So I kind of go, okay, well, if I am craving sweet things, probably my body saying it needs fruit, not that chocolate bar that I really want. That's in the fridge. So if you have trouble with saying no, rather than buying a big block of chocolate that you're going to eat in one sitting is you have, okay, I'm just going to buy a bar of chocolate. So I don't have it there. And it's not tempting me
(21:42):
Trying to have a wind down time at night to help you sleep better. Really not easy with children. Can I tell you? For me, it's an effort to not be yelling at bedtime, but anyway, but if you can do that and you look at, and I know you are more of an afternoon person than a morning person, maybe instead of having your seven o'clock meetings, Danny, please stop booking me, everybody. You actually close off that part of your calendar and you look at when you work at your best and giving yourself time to ease in. So even though I'm a morning person, I try and avoid booking meetings before at least nine, preferably 10 in the morning
(22:26):
Because
(22:26):
That gives me time to ease in, to plan out what I'm doing, to kind of get my head in the right space so that then I'm more productive for the day.
Danielle Lewis (22:36):
I love that.
Tanya Rutherford (22:38):
So it is about listening to yourself,
Danielle Lewis (22:41):
And I mean that in itself is like bring calm to your life. I feel like we are, again, to the Wonder Woman point, trying to go hustle, hustle, hustle, be the mom, be the business owner, be the friend, be the family person, all of the things. And if we can gift ourself some kindness in listening to our bodies, that is amazing.
Tanya Rutherford (23:10):
And it's not easy. No. But sometimes I used to, when my kids were little, for me going and hanging out the washing outside was my alone time because otherwise they were like little clingons. They were just clinging on. I couldn't get rid of them and I love them, but it's so important to carve out some sort of time, and it might be you're sitting in the car for five minutes before you go inside the house or you are listening to something. I was reading an article today about practicing gratitude, not just thinking about what you're grateful for. And so that's sort of creating a little ritual for yourself, whether it's putting out flowers or it's something where you're actually doing something each day that takes a little bit of time that you can just switch off your brain and focus in the moment, and then that gives your brain a bit of time to recalibrate as well.
Danielle Lewis (24:11):
Yeah, I know, and it is something that it's taken me 40 years to come to grips with, but you've got to remember that you are important and that carving out five minutes out of a 24 hour day, you really are worth that. You might be worth an hour. I know that's controversial. You might be worth a whole hour of looking after yourself, of stopping, of slowing down, of drinking a lemon water, whatever your thing is. I've always felt guilty for prioritizing myself, whether actually I think that only happened to me when I started a business, actually. I think when I used to work in corporate, I didn't care so much. But since having a business, I always feel guilty if I'm not working. And it's just taken me a long time to come to grips with the fact that if I don't look after myself, then I'm not going to have a successful
Tanya Rutherford (25:14):
Business. You are the only one of you there is.
Danielle Lewis (25:18):
Yeah. That's pretty powerful, isn't it? Oh my God, incredible. I feel like we could talk all day. I know. And so I know we've talked about menopause and people are looking after ourselves a lot, but I want to pick your brain on your business journey as well.
Tanya Rutherford (25:38):
Yeah, sure.
Danielle Lewis (25:40):
As you have evolved, what have been some of the biggest business lessons that you've learned? So going from the different business models, going from employee to business owner, just being in business for all of these years, what have been some big things that have really been lessons you've had to learn?
Tanya Rutherford (26:02):
Well, I've kind of switched in and out a bit. So I first started up my sole trader business when I was, must been 30 when I came back. I'd been living in London. I'd been for some weird reason doing my master's in Australia while I was in England. But as you do
(26:28):
Love
(26:28):
It, I fly back for these residentials. And anyway, I started through one of these residentials. I connected with someone and I started doing some consulting work and being my first consulting gig, I'm like, okay, I do the work and I'd send up my invoice and they're like, oh, no, we don't pay until the client pays. And it's like, but I'm working for you, so you need to pay me.
(26:53):
And
(26:54):
So I got paid one and I didn't get paid another because they didn't get paid. And it was frustrating because I wasn't surprised they didn't get paid because they didn't follow the brief the client had given and I'd been involved in creating the brief and here it is, this is what they're after. And they didn't follow through on that and it was kind of like, okay, well interesting lesson one. Always make sure you're going to get paid regardless
(27:19):
And also be mindful of what you have control over and what you don't have control over. And then fast forward a couple of redundancies. I've had I think four or five redundancies that I'm a serial redundant person. Love it. But it's always been a really good catalyst to change. So thinking of, okay, well where am I going next? It was almost like a push I'd want to leave, but I was kind of like, oh, I don't really want to go through that. And then I'd be pushed out the door. I'm like, fine. Okay, go and do it. So I started
Danielle Lewis (27:54):
The universe has to give you a nudge every now and again.
Tanya Rutherford (27:57):
Go on. Yeah, best you got a drop kick out the window though, I think mini. But yeah, so then I went into coaching. So actual, I guess my work career was I did accounting. I then did my MBA so I could move more into management. Then on a side night did some international development analysis. That was really interesting. And then I moved into more education sites, so I sort of evolved into coaching, leadership management, coaching, then development, and then moved into student development when I was at a university. So again, that leadership stuff, but more looking at students, did my tertiary education, and that's when I came up with my learning program because I could see that students didn't know how to learn. They were being told what to do when they were in high school and in university it's like, okay, well here's the material and you've got to submit this and good luck. Helping them to go through that experience helped me to define how my focus is very much about helping people to realize their potential. And that kind of flows through
Danielle Lewis (29:18):
Absolutely
Tanya Rutherford (29:18):
Everything I do
Danielle Lewis (29:19):
And
Tanya Rutherford (29:20):
That personal transformation and growth. That's been the big thing. So when I moved into it, you go, okay, so you're doing learning and then you're doing menopause, and that seems really different, but it's still sort of understanding who you are, how you want to grow, where you want to go next, and helping people realize about potential.
Danielle Lewis (29:41):
I'm like, as soon as you said that, just everything became clear to me that helping people realize their full potential. You are so right. There's so many different elements to that, and I love the connection between the learning platform and now the menopause community. Oh, that's so cool to find a life mission. I love it. I know,
Tanya Rutherford (30:03):
And it is one that because I can sort of see the underlying thing. It's not like it's a, oh, I'm really good at X. Well, actually I'm really good at this kind of thing. And I understand people. I don't have a degree in psychology, but I see people and I listen to people and I notice the patterns, and that's such a powerful thing when you want to help people. The other thing I'm really good at is actually translating the research into normal people stuff. There's a lot of research that you just can't understand, so you need someone who can make it real and make it relatable. So that kind of got me to where I am. What I'm doing now is I'm working on obviously my platform, the community that I'm creating around that and the coaching that will help women to move into their transformative selves, whatever they want to be. But this year's sort of working on our first online menopause summit.
Danielle Lewis (31:11):
Oh, cool.
Tanya Rutherford (31:12):
So I'm bringing in lots of experts. Yeah. I'm not a medical expert, but I don't need to be, I have all these amazing women out there that I can work with. So Dr. Kelly Tegel is a great one. People looking for telehealth in menopause her well clinic is one that anyone can access. Kirsten Baus, who I know you interviewed just a few weeks back,
(31:38):
I've got Jen Hacker Pearson, she's sort of more the neurological side of things, and yeah, few other lovely ladies from looking at workforce, looking at spiritual wellbeing. And then, yeah, I'm looking at who else am I going to bring into that as well. So that's going to be February that we'll be running that, which is really exciting. That's so cool. Yeah, and it's funny because every time I interview someone for my podcast, I learn so much more about menopause and it's like, oh, I'm just going to add that to my list and I'm going to add that to this. And so it's so much fun when you find your folk and you know what that's like.
Danielle Lewis (32:25):
Absolutely. And I love that it's constant learning. It doesn't matter if it's business or it's the industry that we're in. That's kind of the fun part is you do, you're so right. Literally every time I'm on a podcast, I literally have a post-it note list here from just our conversation. I'm always learning something new or getting inspired or getting a new idea. That's why I love actually being in business because it's a constant evolution, constant growth. No two days are the same, which is probably a nightmare for some people, but I just think it's such a fantastic life path,
Tanya Rutherford (33:06):
And it's all about your perspective and your mindset though,
Danielle Lewis (33:10):
Because
Tanya Rutherford (33:11):
If you are focused on what they're always saying is, oh, who's your competitor and how are you different? And what's this? You can become really closed and fear minded, whereas when you open up, and I could be like that with menopause, I could be going, okay, well, I want to be the queen of menopause, queen bee,
(33:29):
Love it,
(33:31):
And I want to destroy everyone in my path. I'm going to be the queen of hearts or something. But what's the point? It's so much better. You work with other people and you share the knowledge and you share the skills and you're wanting to make the impact. I mean, in terms of a business perspective, there are 80,000 women every year starting menopause journey. It's not like there's five people that we are fighting over. There's no reason why we can't all be helping women because I mean, certainly all the women I talk to are all about helping other women. They're not there profiteering, that sort of thing. Yeah, okay. I know that can happen, but I don't tend to see that because they're not the people I work with,
Danielle Lewis (34:23):
And I love that attitude. There's always enough. There is enough for everybody to win. I mean, it's really interesting you say that. I mean, obviously in the women in business community space, it's the same that I could be competing with all the other women in business communities. Instead, I joined them all. I'm a part of them. I've got five memberships because we all have our take all have our own point of difference. We all support different people at different stages of the journey, have different cultures, have different perspectives. And I think if you have that mentality in business that you can collaborate rather than compete, it just opens up so much more opportunity. And it's such a more, I think, again, calmer place to work from when you're not hoarding your resources and you can
Tanya Rutherford (35:17):
Have them laugh with everyone and you can share ideas, and you can build on ideas and you can work together. You're not afraid. Someone's going to steal something, it's never going to, even if they did take an idea, it's never going to be the same as what you'd be delivering anyway.
Danielle Lewis (35:32):
Exactly. And I think that's the nice thing. Often people say, oh, that's already been done. I'm like, yeah, but no one's done it. You would do it. We all bring our own point of difference to things. It just reminded me as well, I spoke to a woman earlier today and she's like, I've never heard of Spark. And I was like, oh, that's so funny. I think that I talk about it a lot. I think I've got ads running, I'm talking on social media every day. I'm doing this and doing this, and this person has just come into my world in the last week. And I'm like, isn't it funny how, again, we feel like we're over promoting ourselves, but really we are not. You can't talk about your business enough. There are all of these customers out there waiting for you. There is enough. There is a pool. You've just got to put yourself out there and keep putting yourself out there.
Tanya Rutherford (36:26):
And it's so funny you say that, Danny, because this morning I was looking at this one of the grant websites and they had all the list of grants and there was this one Spark business. I'm like going, oh, that sounds good. And I'm like, oh, it's Danny. That's right. Oh my God. I'm glad we're on a grant
Danielle Lewis (36:41):
Website. That's fun. Yeah. Yes. Oh, that's so good. I know. And it is crazy, isn't it? I think you do have to put in a lot of work to put yourself out there. And I think especially women, we worry. I think that we're being annoying, that we're talking about ourselves too much, but there's just, I don't think you can ever, especially women, because we usually have really impactful businesses. We usually in the business of creating a transformation, delivering value, the world needs what we have. I don't think we can ever talk about ourselves too much.
Tanya Rutherford (37:20):
And I think for me, it's more comfortable talking about my business than me. So my original coaching business was TM Rathered, and it was always really, I'm like, yeah, I'm coach, whatever. Whereas when I talk about Learn, grow, become, or I talk about the Queen Bee Initiative, it's like, it's like this third party and I go, we okay, actually, it's just me, but we're doing it. We collectively, I know it doesn't feel so personal, and I think sometimes that is it. There's so much fear about putting ourselves out there. So if we can create that sort of degree of separation, then sometimes that's a nice little comfort zone that we can create for ourselves.
Danielle Lewis (38:07):
I think that's genius because you are so right. So many people do worry about putting themselves out there. Why not Then create a brand. And then it's like you can be all of the things that you wish you could be for yourself and just pop it behind a brand, and then you can speak about it. It's this amazing entity that you probably are the amazing entity, but it helps you feel like you're not big. Noting yourself a little bit. I think that's such a genius business hack.
Tanya Rutherford (38:36):
And the thing is, I mean also I guess from a business perspective is if you build something that is sustainable and ongoing is that you can then sell that at the end of your business life too, because it has its own identity. It's not, okay, well, when I die, when my business is dead too. Yeah, exactly. If I don't want it anymore, I've just got to wrap it up. Whereas I think you create so many more options as well as that sort of freedom of hiding behind a brand, even though the brand is you as well.
Danielle Lewis (39:09):
Yeah, exactly. Oh my God, I love it so much. Tanya. You are the best. Now, I always love to leave these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Tanya Rutherford (39:30):
It's not always easy, but that doesn't mean it's not the right choice.
Danielle Lewis (39:37):
I could not agree with you more. I think a lot of it, it's, oh my God, you're triggering me again today. This is crazy. But it is really interesting since I'm going through a business transition on my other business, and I know some of the decisions I have to make are the right decisions, but they're really hard and they're really emotional. And I just want to cry, but you are right. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. It's not always easy, is it?
Tanya Rutherford (40:13):
No. And I know for me, one of the challenges I have is even though my business is a certified social enterprise, so it has it in its constitution that it reinvest profits if I ever make any. But I'm always creating things to give back regardless. But because I'm not a, not-for-profit with DGI status, people don't, you just crossed off so many lists in terms of getting support. And I think as much as we, we've come a long way with the concept around what a social enterprise is, we still have a lot of work to do in that space. And I think for a lot of women, the way we work tends to be in that give back space, as you said. So we should be able to get more support. We should be able to get that
Danielle Lewis (41:05):
Recognition.
Tanya Rutherford (41:07):
But it's not just a tip nice to have, but it is actually something that we can get funding for different things. Now, we're really lucky with the Queensland government. They have social enterprise grants. But if you want to have something more, if you want to get, I've been trying to get sponsorship and do these things throughout Summit, and even though I would've thought it would be a commercial decision of yes, we want to be associated with supporting women, we are looking at a national reach. You think it was a good thing, but still coming back as, oh, we only support organizations that have DGA status. And you're like, really? Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong ones. But it is really challenging
Danielle Lewis (41:51):
And is frustrating as well because those people that have those rules in place are really precluding themselves from great opportunities, which is really, really frustrating. And I feel like that government and corporate do sometimes just really restrict themselves and have this outdated set of checklist items and we're like, it's 20, 24. People get with the times. There are amazing businesses doing amazing things that should have more support.
Tanya Rutherford (42:26):
And for-profit necessarily mean that you're evil.
Danielle Lewis (42:29):
No. Oh my God. A woman, an amazing investor, Elaine Stead said to me once, she's like, profit and purpose shouldn't be mutually exclusive. And I'm like, yeah. And the more I think about it, it's like the more money good people make, the more good they will do.
Tanya Rutherford (42:46):
Yeah, oh, absolutely. The more reach you can get.
Danielle Lewis (42:49):
Yeah.
Tanya Rutherford (42:50):
Yeah. But anyway, that's my gripe for the day.
Danielle Lewis (42:55):
I love it. You're incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your wisdom with the Spark community. Yeah, always insightful. I love it.
Tanya Rutherford (43:06):
Thank you so much for having me, Danny. It's been our pleasure.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
