LISA MCADAMS' STORY.

LISA MCADAMS,
Safe Space
Workplaces

Trigger warning: this brave story discusses domestic violence and homelessness. Please read with care.

“A lot of companies freeze because they want to do everything all at once. So by having different Pledges, I hope it gives them achievable goals to work toward in the next six months, or the next year. Because the bigger the business, the slower the wheels turn.

I'm hoping that companies will step back and say, “Well, I've pledged to take action, and I can do this one thing now…”. And slowly, that they'll start moving forward. I'm hoping that once they start making little steps, it'll feel achievable.

“If you're constantly taking little steps before you know it, you're there.”

I do hope they start using Two Good Soap, and Rob gets to his 3-year goal of funding 80 women a year…but bigger than that, I hope this Take The Pledge campaign makes them think about what are we actually doing, as opposed to what we say we're doing.

DV has got to stop being something that's only in their Marketing and Promotions departments, and back in their Human Resources departments, in their office spaces, on the floor. Workplaces need to stop churning and burning employees in working groups for DV support; it’s time to put proper strategies in place. That's what I mean by awareness to action; put the policy in the shredder, if it’s just a piece of paper hovering in a filing cabinet. What are you doing to actively support?

This Pledge - these Safe Spaces Packs - tell your employees, we really do support you. I think that’s the first big step. My son asked, “why in the toilet?”, and I said, “Because it's somewhere private women can think.” With these Pledge posters, you've now got helplines on the back of the toilet door where they're sitting in a cubicle and no one can see them - they don't have to be caught in the tea room, staring at the notice board. Even if they're scared to write it down or put it in their phone, once you've been to the toilet enough times, it's in your head.

Even if someone doesn't disclose at work, knowing their workplace care enough to Take The Pledge, and have those assets in their bathrooms…it might be the reason somebody talks to their sister, or their brother, or their mum. To see each day, “WE BELIEVE YOU, WE BELIEVE IN YOU.” They might eventually think, “You know, my mum would believe me. Why has he got me convinced my mum wouldn't believe me?”

“Once those women don’t feel completely isolated, it’s the first stage of perpetrators losing power.”

The same way that purple bow that changed my life, those interactions stay with them; it gets them ready for help, when it does come. Even if you don’t get to see it. Because you’re not going to get the metrics on everyone you help; some will disclose to a friend, a family member, they’ll ring the helpline.

But it doesn’t mean that the support in the workplace didn’t change their life.”

CHANGE
THE COURSE.

“There have been a handful of big moments, that changed the course of my life for the better.

The first was when I was still living in my abusive relationship. I lived in this really beautiful gated community and my son was playing - choo-choo, choo-choo-ing, with his little train. I was holding my daughter, who was only a baby, and the sun was glistening through the trees. I remember looking out of the window and thinking, “if the world was meant to feel this ugly, it would match”…it made no sense to me, that the rest of the world was so beautiful. Not long after that, I was in the car and Anastasia's song ‘Sick and Tired’ came on. She sings about being sick and tired, of being sick and tired… and I think those two things resonated. It started me questioning.

But the real reason I left? My friend, Kim - who I'd been friends with since we were early teens - was in a really abusive relationship. She was always going to leave him. “I'll just get my youngest to school”, then “I'll just get my oldest to high school”, and then “I'm just going get my hip sorted on his private health first”. Her hip was cancer…she died at 40. But the last thing she said to me - and we knew it'd be our last time we'd see each other, which was hard, but a blessing - she said,

““Please don't do what I did. Don't leave it until it's too late.””

I left him 20 days after I found out she died. I realised, there isn't time. I was terrified, but I knew I couldn't disrespect her memory; I’d promised her I would change the future for my children. And she still inspires me. Everything I do now, I think, “Kim, look at the difference you're making”. I feel like she sits on my shoulder.

That was probably the biggest change in my life. I've emigrated to Australia and made big changes before, but I think I was pulled by other people; leaving my husband was the first big decision I made on my own.”

THE PURPLE
BOW STORY.

“Another big decision I made for myself, was meeting Rob Caslick.

At first, it was a bit confronting; an engineer contacts me on LinkedIn, and asks if I can come and meet him? It took a lot of guts to go see him - because there was nothing in his profile then, Two Good wasn’t listed yet. I was a bit terrified, but I decided to go.

I had just launched doing my work with DV support in the workplace. My history is in corporate in finance, and I knew the difference work could make in those situations. How important your independence is, and how it can support your choices. Because what people didn't think about is, once you're in poverty, your choices get smaller and smaller. People say money doesn't make you happy - but it gives you choices, and choices make you happy.

So I was about a year into the DV work, when Rob contacted me - he was seeing my blogs about the importance of the workplace. At the time, eight years ago now, Two Good was still in their Eat 1, Treat 1 Jar phase, and he asked, “Does gifting a jar of food really help anyone? Am I really changing anything, or am I just massaging my ego?”

Rob is an engineer, whether he's doing engineering or not; he was like, well we feed someone, and then they're back where they started…how do I fix that? That's his mentality – “How do I get it to work better?”.

And that's when I told him the Purple Bow Story…and from how he interpreted that, Two Good became Care Packs, Two Good Soaps, Work Work employment programs. Meeting Rob ended up being a decision that changed the course of other people’s lives, too. I'm not saying Rob wouldn't have done great things without me - but when I look at the women that matter to me, and the things he's done for women like me, I just think, my God…imagine if I hadn't decided to go.

They still have Purple Bow meetings in the Work Work program; they still celebrate Purple Bow Moments when items are gifted to women’s refuges. Knowing that other people are hearing that story and benefiting from something nice that someone did to me, is huge. It's awesome that somebody would really hear you, especially with my past; I wasn't used to people listening.

That is what is so wonderful about Two Good. When you've been through any form of abuse, you're used to not being heard. No one hears you. No one cares what you say. So for me to tell Rob a little story like that, that touched him, and then he's created all of this…it's so healing. That's what Two Good means to me, because you all make sure you hear these women's stories - and from them, Two Good grows and ebbs and flows to what's needed.

I really hit lucky that it was Rob - even with my radar up, he's just a good person. Even though I was scared, my ‘spider senses’ told me he was somebody I could trust. I didn't know how long the friendship would go and all that it would involve… I just knew I could trust him, even early on in my journey. Because Two Good stands with you where you are…not where they expect you to be.”

INTERNATIONAL
WOMEN'S DAY.

Someone once said to me, “International Women's Day is like Mother's Day when you've got toddlers. It's brilliant…as long as you arrange everything yourself.”

Women deserve more than having to arrange their own party to celebrate themselves. We’ve tackled the awareness stage; we’ve got to move into action. We need to be asking, how can we support other women? How do you pull other women up?

Feminism means to me, being able to have the life you want. It’s about being able to make the choices you want to make, while respecting other women's choices at the same time. I think the same about having money; and I don’t mean being rich, but having enough money to choose how to live.

“Because the more choices you have, the richer you are.”

I believe feminism also gives that to men. I grew up in a world where I'd go to friends houses and their mum would say, “wait until your dad gets home”. That's no life for dads; working themselves hard for their family, only to get home and play the bad cop. Men know their families now; they have a choice to take time off, to be the primary carer…even just to be the one that leaves early on a Friday for a cricket game.

My nan hated cooking, whereas my Grandpop loved it – he became a chef after he fought in WW1, when he couldn’t return to the front line after being shot. But not once did I ever taste his food; it would have been seen as insulting her, as though she couldn't look after her family. And she would have been insulting him - that he's weak or not a man, if he was expected to cook. So feminism means having the choices my Nan and Pop both didn't get.”

THE COURAGEOUS
COMMUNICATOR.

“I used to do a lot of policy work, assess, create reports on what to do next. But generally, I was faced with a lot of blocks. I found that a lot of the people that wanted to push these things through were the senior female leaders - so I thought, “Let's give them skills to get around these blocks, and empower senior leaders to change their workplace from the inside, if I can’t change anything from the outside.”

I still provide DV Training for the workplace, but what I'm currently launching is a three-month coaching program for senior leaders called ‘Courageous Communications’. The first six weeks includes education around communication – understanding your own communication style, as well as other people's. It then goes into understanding narcissists - how they work, what they want to get out of certain interactions, the confusion of all their behaviors.

Finally, we go back and look at how they've reacted to certain interactions in the past and what they could have done different; a real deep dive around how to handle these behaviours,moving forward. It was only six weeks - but client feedback was that once we'd finished, they felt a little ‘out there on their own’. So I've made it a three-month course, for continued support while they integrate the new skills and information.

It's mainly women, but it’s really for anybody who needs it – especially minorities, because if you're from a different ethnicity, or if you're gay, those are the people that are more vulnerable to workplace harrassment. It’s about giving them the skills to even the playing field.

And while these Courageous Communication skills are targeted for difficult conversations or situations at work, they’re completely transferrable for managing difficult situations in your home life, too. I see this course as a way to provide people support as work training, that in turn gives them the confidence and tools to stand up to someone at home, without raising suspicion. It’s another discrete way to give that support to anyone who feels disempowered in a relationship…whether it be a professional relationship, or a personal one.”