Bullyology Podcast Episode 4 - Tough Conversations with Nikki Shah

Hello and welcome to the Bullyologist podcast. I am the host, Jessica Hickman, and today is episode number 4, and I have a wonderful guest, Nikki Shah. She is the founder of MyMoose, and today she's going to be sharing her story with us. So Nikki, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Jess.

Um, so do you want to just jump straight in? And actually, I'll just share with the listeners of how we met. So we met through a female, I guess, business and empowerment group called The Little Black Dress, and we instantly connected. Both of us have got business that are built from personal experience, that have the aim to create social impact and change, especially within the corporate world. So Nikki, I've invited you here today to share your story with the listeners and how we can connect and how we can help you with your mission also.

Sure, okay, well, thanks again for having me, Jess. So yeah, My Muse, it started last October. That's when I launched the company, but it's been a little bit of a, you know, a journey along that's actually got me there, just like your story. So a couple of years ago in 2015, my partner Mike was diagnosed with cancer. So he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is cancer of the bone and it's a pretty severe cancer. And I was working at the time, so I was working full-time in recruitment. And during that time, you know, I was sat at my desk and I was given the phone call that he had cancer. And pretty much that phone call changed my life, you know, everything, everything changed. It kind of felt like everything went in slow motion for, a period of time and I continued to work and my life started to change. There was, you know, chemo appointments, hospital appointments, uh, blood tests, scans, and the whole time I was working full-time. My company was really supportive at the start, they were fantastic. I was able to have flexible working, take my laptop into work, etc. Um, but then you know, things just started to change a little bit and you could just notice that there was just a little bit of a grudge that I wasn't in the office all the time. But I also needed to be by my partner's side. Like, the chemo treatment he was having was pretty full-on. Um, I actually got headhunted to go and work for another company, and I was very honest when, when they approached me and just said, listen, this is what's going on in my personal life. Like, you know, my partner's got cancer. Um, we're we don't know what the outcome is and we don't know what the treatment's gonna be like. I'm completely fine if you don't give me a contract, that's all good. And they were just like, no, we wanna support you as much as we can in any way that we can. We'd love, we want you on board. So I did the jump of moving jobs, which in itself is just, you know, quite a big thing to do.

[Speaker] That's a very stressful time. [Speaker] Yeah. [Speaker] Moving jobs, making new colleagues, a whole change in your life and structure of your routine, I guess.

Yeah, and even little things like the commute, you know, I had gone from commuting in the city every day to commuting to North Sydney every day. So just having that extra amount that you had to consider. And again, my company was really supportive and, you know, Mike actually finished his treatment and had his last bit of surgery and he was given the all clear. So my life actually, it got pretty exciting then. Like, you know, it got back to normal, we went on holiday, started making plans for the future. And then I was at work again and I got a phone call and pretty much all it said was, the cancer's come back and it's spread, I'm now stage 4 and I'm terminal. Yeah.

That must have been really hard and I got goosebumps.

Yeah, even now I still get the goosebumps, you know, and yeah, and so that phone call changed everything again, you know, I'd gone into this, vision that my life was going to go back on this normal path and—

And you're both very young. I think, Mike, you told me that, from your blogs, Mike was 30 when he was first diagnosed.

Yeah, yeah. So I was a couple of years older than him. So yeah, Mike was 30 when he was diagnosed and, you know, he had a young son as well. And then unfortunately he went through, you know, a big battle and I was at work at the same time and working full-time and there started to be conversations, just, you know, questions just going around going, how long is this gonna go on for?

Wow.

And it's a really difficult question, you know, 'cause there's part of you that's just like, well, I want it to go on as long as possible because you want that person to stay around. But yeah, you actually have no idea what the answer to that question is.

I know, well, I can't imagine, but it's just, you know, your life is your livelihood, I guess. And if you're suffering at work, everything else suffers. And if you're suffering in your personal life, you suffer at work. So that, you know, they go hand in hand. And I think that's how we first connected, of talking about, um, when you're not okay at work, how everything else is affected. You know, it was going both ways for you because you had a lot going on in your personal life, of course, and then work were kind of asking them tough questions or not asking them. Was it silence, isolation? How did you feel?

Yeah, the A lot of the time it was isolation. A lot of the time it was people just not asking anything, you know, not even asking me how my weekend was because they were just afraid that I would have been sat there at home crying or doing nothing. And so I just, yeah, I didn't get involved. I didn't get asked to get involved in stuff, you know, even when it was kind of like after work stuff, people just wouldn't invite me. Um, people wouldn't ask me how Mike was, and I think that was the thing that I found really, really hard. Like, he was such a big part of my life, and, you know, it was, it was a lot of my life at that time. And yet people just wouldn't ask. They wouldn't say, you know, how's he doing? Like, you know, how was the last treatment? Or anything like that. And I was very open, um, at work with my colleagues, but then also with my clients as well, as to yeah, how things were going. And surprisingly, it was actually my clients that were the ones that would ask the questions. Yeah. Um, but I worked with quite a few younger people, and you know, it, it's a super difficult conversation. It's something that it is. Yeah, people struggle with no matter what age they are or no matter what they've been through in their life. Like, they are hard conversations to have, and I'm not saying that they're not. Um, But from people not having those conversations with me, it was, it just made my life so lonely. And it wasn't even just in a work setting that my friends in my personal life really didn't know how to talk to me either. And that was really hard. You know, sometimes my family really struggled and both you and I, you know, our families live overseas. And so they're pretty much phone call conversations or Skype calls kind of thing. You know, sometimes it's actually really hard. I know that you've mentioned before that, um, you didn't sometimes tell your parents how you were feeling because they lived on the other side of the world. And, you know, I really struggled with that as well. Like, I felt so lonely at times because I didn't want to tell my parents that I was petrified of losing Mike, because I know that all my mum would have wanted to have done is jump on a plane and get over here. But Yeah, that's not going to be the solution. And people, things with people would throw stuff at me just like, well, why don't you just move home?

Yeah, that, that's an, an kind of easy thing for people to say, go home. And what you just mentioned on there, I know it's very different circumstances, but we connected over sharing our stories of obviously my workplace bullying, which a lot of my listeners know in deep, um, in depth about, and the feeling of the loneliness of when my workplace became quite toxic and it was like the end spoken an elephant in the room.

Yeah, yeah.

And you kind of felt similar, even though our stories are different. We felt very lonely in the workplace, like no one was there to kind of help us or listen to us. And you spend most of your life at work, you know, 10 hours a day with— at work, more than sometimes we spend time with our partners.

And you—

they became your family. They do, especially when you're on the other side of the world, like both of us from the UK. They— your, your work colleagues are who you spend your most time with, and when they're not asking you about, you know, how are you, it's so lonely. And the isolation is something that kind of takes over your life.

Yeah, completely. And, you know, that was definitely— I think it's also that thing that it's somebody asking how are you, but then actually, do they really want to know how you are? You know, do they really want to know that last night I was in hospital the whole night and, you know, I slept next to Mike, like, you know, on the chair next to him kind of thing, 'cause he was really sick. Like, do they wanna know that or do they wanna just have an answer of just like, yeah, I'm okay?

Yeah, I'm good. You know, people kind of wanna talk about what you did on the weekend and they want positive stories of going out, getting drunk, but when times are tough, people don't know how to have those conversations and that's why you started MyMoods, right?

Yeah, yeah, so I started it, unfortunately Mike passed away last January.

Yeah, I was gonna say, it's important for the listeners to know what happened to Mike and we will touch on how that kind of made you feel afterwards and more work supportive. But if you wanna just give an overview on My Moves because it's something positive, I guess, that came from your experience.

Yeah, so I've decided to go completely different to what I used to do and step into the corporate setting, but into more of a way of educating and doing training workshops around those difficult conversations with cancer. So actually having a proactive approach. So being able to talk, being able to talk to those HR managers, the line managers, and actually educate them on how to be able to have somebody continue working while they have cancer or if they're a carer as well. There's, you know, unfortunately the stats are pretty scary now. It's gonna be 1 in 3 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Wow. Now that doesn't mean that everybody's gonna be, you know, terminal and pass away from it, but it does mean that a lot of people are gonna get affected. And if it's not you yourself that's affected, you're probably gonna know somebody very close to you that is.

Yeah, and you know, I'll share my story. I lost my father when I was in my teens. And, you know, look, only now as an adult, I realize the effect that had on me. I didn't have a close relationship with my father, and I do talk in other podcasts about my dad. He's my stepdad that has kind of raised me from a young age. But cancer did affect my family. My nan, or grandma, passed away when I was very young, and I vividly remember her. And I also remember the effect that had on my father. His grief led him dealing with, um, having alcohol as a form of coping mechanism. So my relationship with my father after my nan passed away became very distant, to the point where he was no longer in my life because he was battling his own demons with alcohol. He later passed away at a similar age to my nan, early 50s, um, because of cancer. So in my teens, I kind of suppressed the effect of it. It was not something I speak about. A lot of my friends now don't even know that, that part of me, because my stepdad— I'm so thankful he comes— he came into my life, you know, he's been that great role model. And people don't often know that, you know, cancer has affected my family from a young age, and it was not something I really talk about apart from with my very close friends. And suppressing that, I remember on the day of his funeral, I was sharing with you earlier that I had a Pink concert with my friends, and I was in my teens, and I completely suppressed any emotion. And I went to this Pink concert, and all through my teens, I guess it was not something I ever would raise. But only now I'm an adult and I'm very conscious, I guess. I told myself a story that because my dad and Gran had died at a young age, that was my destiny. And I never kind of spoke that out loud or realized that cancer had touched and affected me. So when I kind of met you, I started to reflect on, wow, this, you know, 1 in 3 people, this affects people all over the world. And I've never spoke about it with anyone, I guess, you know, I just suppressed it. So now it come to the surface and I realized if this had happened to me now when I was in the workplace, I wouldn't know how to approach the conversation. That's why I think your work is so impotent.

Yeah, it's, you know, and it is, it's really, you know, Mike got diagnosed and the week afterwards, one of my closest friends also got diagnosed with cancer and he was actually living in the States at the time and, you know, I can remember just taking his phone call and I didn't tell him what had happened, what had just happened to Mike and that he'd just been diagnosed but I was just like, these are the two closest people in my life by my family and they've both got cancer. And then a year after that, one of my close, close friends also got diagnosed with cancer. That's 3 people that are so close to me and I'm in my early 30s. To have that happen was really, you know, that's when it kind of really hit me that this happens to a lot of people and that conversation and not being able to know what to say or know what to do is really hard and I kept on having it as a constant reminder even when it happened to my, you know, one of my really good friends and just the conversations that her and I had, you know, we were very open because she actually, she felt that she could tell me anything because I was just like, done it all before, you know, been to the chemo wards, know what to expect type thing and yeah, she said that she really struggled as well and that's when it really opened me up just to just go, You know what, this is something that it seems that a lot of people are really struggling with. Like if they hear the word cancer, you kind of just have a freak out moment straight away and you don't know what to say or what to do, or you're afraid of saying the wrong thing.

And I think in the media as well, there's so many different things that they say, if you eat this, it causes cancer, alcohol. And for a while I got obsessed with controlling everything that I believed and now it's like technology. And I just think that you can become very kind of like obsessed and we, don't really know, do we? There's so many reports and research, and I just think that, you know, it is, it is a scary topic that people, you know, if you lose someone close to you, it's something you want to avoid at all costs. And I didn't realize until, you know, I'm in my 20s now, late 20s, almost 30, um, but, you know, I was obsessed for a while about every time my mum was sick, I was over-paranoid, and I was thinking, oh, I'm, I'm in my teens at the time, I can't believe I've lost a parent. And so many people do lose loved ones close to them and they just don't know where to turn for help. And I know that the big message you share with corporates especially is it's a very lonely place. How can we improve the conversation to support people?

Yeah, because like you were saying before, you know, you work is where you spend a lot of your time. And especially nowadays, like, you know, we don't switch off from work. We've got technology with us all the time. So you pretty much sometimes are at work 24 hours a day. Like, you've got your laptop, you've got your mobile, you're constantly contactable, um, that it makes it, you know, one of those things that it is your life. And a lot of people, from doing a lot of conversations with people that have had cancer, um, you know, work is their one thing that they do want to continue to, to carry on with. Um, they lose so much of their identity when they get told that they have cancer. Or even as a carer, if you're caring for somebody with cancer, you lose so much of your identity. I lost so much of my identity. You know, I stopped going to the gym. I stopped hanging out with my mates. I stopped like going out partying and stuff. And—

Yeah.

And it really got to the point where, you know, work is that really significant part of your life. And if you're able to have that supportive work environment, it can make the rest of the journey so much smoother and it can make you feel like you still have that meaning to your life when you feel that everything else has got a big question mark over it.

Yeah, and I can only imagine, you know, as a young girl becoming a carer for the person you love the most, you know, that has significant effect also on, you know, you looking after yourself and I've read a lot of your blogs and they're wonderful and this morning I was thinking, Wow, you know, you are just caring for someone and not putting your own kind of needs, like going to the gym. I know that we were speaking this morning about how much the gym improves our own mental health, but you said like some days you just, it wasn't even a thought for you because you were just in mode where, you know, help Mike, help Mike. And you know, it is a difficult time, and I didn't realize how difficult it is for people to care for someone in that way.

Yeah, and you know, there's, there's a lot of Australians out there that are carers. There's actually a lot of young, you know, younger adolescents that are carers for their parents as well. And a carer doesn't mean that you're, you know, looking after somebody 24 hours a day. It doesn't have to mean that. It can be that it's, you know, a parent that you do the grocery shopping for or whatever it is. And, and so, you know, for me, I, I was I was a carer a lot of the time. I was working a full-time job as well as being, you know, being Mike's carer. And that meant preparing healthy meals, you know, it meant hospital visits. And it was, it was, I reflect back now and I really wish that I'd been given some advice that I still needed to give myself time.

That's a powerful message, isn't it? You know, you— for me, I read your blog and something that stood out for me was that you were still trying to make life as normal as possible for Mike. So you were taking plastic plates with foods and snuggling up in the bed and watching Netflix to try and still have this relationship and that positivity for the future. And for me, when I read that, I was like, wow, that is, that is challenging in itself.

Yeah, you know, I, I think 'cause Mike would have to spend overnight time, overnight in hospital when he was having his chemo. And I used to, well, number one, he hated the hospital food. You know, it was one of his things. And so I would bring food in for him, but I hated the fact that we'd be eating, you know, out of plastic containers and stuff like that. So I'd take plates in and I'd take proper knives and forks in. A teapot with ginger tea. And, and like you said, I just tried to make, you know, life as normal as it could be. But from the outside, there was absolutely no, no part of my life that was really normal when I was going through that part. Um, you know, when Mike passed away, it, it really did make me reflect and realize that I'd kind of— I, I'd stopped doing, you know, a lot of those things. I'd actually forgotten what the things were that brought me joy and happiness, you know, and it would be the simple things like doing the Bondi to Bronte walk. I know we were talking about that earlier as well. And, you know, just stepping out of my doorstep and just seeing that and being with the ocean, you know, like being in the ocean is really important to me, but—

Oh, that's my happy place too. I feel like it washes away all of life's struggles. And I guess, and when I'm at the beach and, you know, we talked about this, that moment where, you know, I've just become so grateful for experiences in my life and just really appreciate every moment. I think in society, you know, with technology and comparison, it's— we really focus on things that really don't matter. And like, love and connection and enjoying moments with people is so important, isn't it? And I think that we kind of forget that with technology as well, about special moments with people.

Yeah, yeah. And You know, technology was definitely one of my things that, don't get me wrong, I love it. You know, it means that I can be contacted to my parents and, you know, do video calls with them and stuff. My parents at the moment are just loving the fact that, you know, you can do that 3-way phone call, video call. They're just like, your brother's in London, you're in Australia, we're here, this is so great. You know, and so technology is great, but at the same time, there's times where you just need to, to separate away from it. And, um, we, you know, when you were talking about the ocean, then it actually just brought something up that I'd not thought about in a long time. But when Mike passed away, so the ocean was always my thing, you know, I'd go for morning swims, watch the sunrise, like, just that was my, my happy place. And when Mike passed away, I actually just couldn't go down to the ocean. It was weird. Like stepping into the ocean just didn't feel right. And I think it was about 3 weeks after he passed away, and I kind of just was like, I need to do this. And just that, that ritual of walking into the water and having a wave crash on me, I don't know what it was, but even now, like, it's literally bringing tears to my eyes just thinking. Yeah, I can remember having that moment, and up until literally right now, I'd not thought about it, but It was a really significant time for me 'cause I think it was because I was holding on to stuff and I didn't wanna let go yet.

And I'm getting, you know, you don't wanna let go of the moments you had and you don't have to. And I think in one of your blogs, and I know this, grief kind of doesn't go away. People say it gets easier over time and I think you kind of learn to live with it. Is that your experience?

Yeah, I definitely, I don't think it gets easier with time. I think you just, you learn with time, you know? And grief is such an interesting thing. I read so much into it and, you know, I went and sought help and stuff when I was going through it myself.

[Speaker] And that's so important, getting help and speaking to someone. There shouldn't be a shame or stigma around getting help. We all in everyday life, I, you know, the best thing for me was seeing a psychologist and I waited for 3 and a half years till my physical health was damaged before I actually sought help.

Yeah, and I just wanted to add that. Yeah, and that would, you know, I knew as soon as that happened with Mike, and even during the time that he was having treatment, you know, I was speaking to a psychologist and it was really important for me. You know, friends can only support to a certain extent, but sometimes you do need that person that has got that extended knowledge that, and they, she was amazing, absolutely amazing, you know, the advice, but just her listening was so important for me. You know, she, I could just be so honest and open about everything that was going on.

And that's, that's so important, isn't it? And just touching on the friends, like for me, when I was going through a difficult time, my friends are amazing, I'm really lucky, and like you have a brilliant support network, but there's only a part of you, and I don't know if you felt the same, but I felt like I sugarcoated a lot of how I was feeling, 'cause you don't wanna be that friend where you're bringing the social situation down, down. And, you know, I say to my friends all the time, it's okay to not be kind of okay and just break down if you need to break down. You don't need to sugarcoat it to me. And I think that we try to do that, especially with our parents and people. So that support, professional help who are qualified to kind of actively listen. And sometimes I'd go there and have nothing to say, then leave there, and I was just like, it just comes. And I feel like doing this podcast as well and talking to when people, sometimes you just see a lot of yourself in those people and reflect on the moments like you just had there.

And I think it's the no judgment, you know, and I really, I think that was something that I really was able to take away with me from what my psychologist had with me where, you know, she'd listen to me and listen to everything that I was talking about, but she had no judgment and so, you know, now a lot of the times when I listen to when my friends have things going on, whatever they are, you know, it could be one of my best friends that's telling me about her 2-year-old child, you know, stripping her nappy off and running around the apartment. But it's that no judgment, which we're so— social media is probably the biggest reason that we have such a huge judgment on people. Um, But it is, you know, having that no judgment. Everybody's different. Everybody has gone through different parts of their life and come out of it the other way. You know, they've been raised differently and different cultures, you know, even, yeah, as similar as English and Australian are, there's still differences in the cultures and—

Yeah, and definitely with social media, for example, people don't know what goes on behind closed doors, let alone behind social media. And when I was going through my difficult spell, my life was perfect on social media because because we all want to wear this mask and look strong and resilient, and, you know, it's, it's fake. We, we don't put our, our dullest moments on social media. We put us at the beach or, you know, our happy moments. And so just because someone looks okay on social media doesn't necessarily mean that they are. We see this all the time, unfortunately, with, you know, the rise in suicide and different things that— where we, we just didn't see certain things coming So I think it's important to be honest and vulnerable, and that's what I love about your message as well, going into corporates and pretty similar to me, you know, we're having these tough conversations of the elephant in the room.

Yeah.

And you know, it is a hard battle. So how is— yeah, it is.

It is, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.

So how is your message landing or being received within corporates? Any challenges? Are they— open and receptive to this kind of conversation?

I'd say, you know, it's a mixture. You've got some people that are really receptive to it and, you know, I've had some great, great feedback and run some great workshops with some corporates where, you know, they've really been wanting to bring this message on board. And then there's other corporates that are really still quite reluctant because are just like, oh, do we open up this can of worms? This is really, this could bring in lots of other things. But what I tend to really say to a lot of corporates is, think about where mental health was 10 years ago. Before the guys like, are you okay? And stuff like that. Even talking about mental health in the workplace was such a no. It's taboo. Yeah, it was like completely.

No, it's just like bullying, you know, people. And that's where I've seen a lot of myself in you listening to your story. It's bullying and, you know, the big C, cancer. Um, these are topics that no one wants to touch upon in everyday life, let alone a CEO or HR or corporates. They get thrown in the too hard pile or brushed under the carpet. And I think that, you know, I commend you as well, you know, coming from a personal experience, knocking on the corporate doors. And we do bounce each ideas off each other and Some days it's like, okay, really commend the proactive companies. And I think that's what we're both doing now is going after them proactive companies that are unafraid, unapologetic, and will open the door to these conversations because they are not going away. And the more they manifest—

Yeah, yeah, they're not going away. But then at the same time, it's also that it's those companies that really have their employees at the centre of their business. Like, you know, you read so many times that a company is only who works, you know, the employees that work for you, and it's so true. Like, it doesn't matter what the company is, whether it's a big tech company or a recruitment business, it doesn't, you know, it's still the same thing. And, um, it's those companies that really see the value in the people that work for them, um, They're the companies that seem to, you know, they're the companies that I wanna be working with. And I'm sure that you're exactly the same because they see the value in their people. But then the conversations that we're having, you know, with these workplaces are conversations that yes, are very, very important within the workplace. And, you know, one of my messages is that if somebody in a team is going through cancer treatment or they're being a carer is actually how can the rest of the team support them as well, not just the company. And what, you know, what do you need to put on, what you need to implement in for that team to be supported. And that's really important as well because, you know, if somebody's going for treatment every single morning, there can be resentment in the team. Um, so there's, you know, there's definitely— there's toolkits that you can walk away with where it really— it can help you, but it can also help you in your personal life you know, if you have got a family member or if you have got a friend that's going through this as well, it can give you that toolkit that you can then— you feel like you can say stuff or do things that can help, but only to your capacity, you know. And that's the thing, you're not there to, to cure them or do whatever, but it's giving those little, those little things that are so important. And I can remember even when, um, you know, I— I like— I was looking after Mike and one of my friends was, you know, she called me up and she was just like, okay, I know that you're really struggling right now and you're working full-time and stuff like that. I'm just thinking, I'm not going to ask you what you need, but I'm just going to say that I'm going to arrange for a cleaner to come to your house every week and clean your place, do your laundry, fold it up, put new clean bedsheets on, That was honestly, like, it meant so much to me to have somebody just, you know, go, I'm not gonna even let you think about this, but I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do it.

So powerful, isn't it? And the small things like that just brought tears to my eyes, uh, mainly because I don't really enjoy cleaning, so I'm thinking, I wish someone would do that for me. But oh, like, that is just sensational, isn't it? Your friend has gone I'm not going to ask you because what we do, um, as humans is we don't want to put extra stress on someone. I was saying this to my mum yesterday. She's not been feeling too well and I said, you know, you should just allow other people to look after the dog. And she's like, I'll pay them. I said, no, you don't need to do that. Like, if people are offering you, take up the kind offer, you know. And yeah, that is so powerful. And that's great for the listeners if they know that someone has gone through a time, it doesn't have to be, you know, something like give up work or whatever. It's just, you know, I can arrange for you, your groceries to be delivered from Coles.

Yeah.

Or your house cleaned or babysit the kids for you to have some time together.

Yeah, you know, or one of my friends, when Mike did pass away, one of my good friends here who would actually just come to my house every day with a coffee and a croissant, who's like, I don't have to stay if you don't want me to. You know, I'm just going to drop these off. If you want a hug, I'll give you a hug, but otherwise I'll just, you know, and it was that thing of just like, he just allowed me to be me, but then at the same time, you know, he knew that I'd want a coffee in the morning. And it was just that thought that was so important. And it really, it was those little things that just meant so much to me.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, so going forward, um, what's your plans and ambition? I know that you're going on some exciting rally for My Muse and raising money for—

so it's for Cancer Council Research. Um, I'm doing a thing called the Mystery Box Rally. I'm actually doing it for the second year in a row, so I did it last year, so I can talk a little bit about what last year was all about. Um, so it raises money for Cancer Council Research and it's part of the Box Rallies group. Group. So, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this, but it's the Box Rally and the Mystery Box Rally that are part of the Box Rally community. And it's 150 cars.

Wow.

Yeah. Now the one thing about it is that you've got to have a car that's 25 years or older and it can only be a two-wheel drive.

Oh goodness. I'm not the best driver either. So, I seen the pictures from last year. Intense but exciting.

So exciting. And I'm doing it with one of my really good friends who was one of those support, you know, support people for me throughout the whole of Mike's journey. And yeah, so we decided to do it last year. We've got a name called Team Bing Bong. If anybody's watched Inside Out, it's actually a memory of Mike. So that was Mike's nickname that I gave him. And I think it's really good now because, you know, that was, the little girl's imaginary friend and feel like he's definitely that imaginary friend that's still around and he was probably giggling like anything last year watching us two crazy people driving in the Outback. So we drove around 3,000 Ks, you know, the start and the finish point, which last year was Mildura. Didn't actually know where Mildura was until we got the start line. And yeah, we drove up to, we crossed four state borders, Uh, it was amazing. We— I got to see parts of Australia I've never experienced. I think a lot of people probably wouldn't. And we went to, um, and we went to— yeah, we went to lots of different areas. And, uh, our car made it, surprisingly. Uh, we did have, you know, other cars in our team that were, um, that lost their exhaust. Yeah. Um, 7 flat tires in one day. And, you know, it's intense. So out of my comfort zone. It was camping in the outback, not showering, peeing in the bush. And let me tell you, there's some parts of Australia where there's not many bushes. So, oh wow. So that was pretty interesting. So we're doing it again this year. Starting in—

Exciting.

Yep, so that's in August. So our car is currently with Subaru right now being all fixed up and ready to go.

And I'm so excited that the Bullyology logo is gonna be traveling with you.

Correct, yep. So, yeah, so if anybody does wanna donate to the cause, they can find a link via my Instagram account. And yeah, any money—

I will share in the show notes where people can find you and you're aiming to raise a lot of money and I think you said so far you've raised $7K?

Yeah, so far we've raised $7K.

Wow.

The rallies as a whole have been going for 10 years and they've raised over $22 million for Cancer Council research.

Amazing.

And this all came from a guy, James, that founded it. He lost his mom and his dad within a year of each other to cancer. And he just thought, nope, that's it. Like, I wanna do something about this. And so he set out on a mission. So it's really amazing when, you know, people do go through these hardships in their life of whatever it is and step out of the other side and wanna do something and wanna create something. That is gonna be a change in the world. And that's where I really, you know, I think everything that you're doing, Jess, is absolutely fantastic and I'm in awe of you and the stuff that you do. Thank you, I appreciate it.

Yeah, oh, well, thank you so much. And that's why I wanted to get you on today because this podcast isn't just gonna be about bullying, it's about like the amazing people that inspire me and I meet along my journey. And we've known each other a couple of weeks now and I feel like like it's a lifetime because we're like authentic, we say our struggles, we, you know, share moments with one another. And so I'm really excited, excited to see how my muse kind of grows outwards. And I know that the moment you're speaking to people in the UK about going on a podcast, yeah, and I just think that this is the beginning, I guess, of something truly amazing that's going to impact so many lives. So your story is amazing.

Thank you, Jess.

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I look forward to having you back soon and hearing about the amazing work you're doing.

Yeah, maybe I can come back after the rally and tell you all about it.

We'd love to hear. Thanks so much.

Thanks, guys.