Levelling Up With Larissa Rose | ProActive Podcast by MeMedia #120

On this episode of The ProActive Podcast, Chris Hogan sits down once again with Larissa Rose - Director of environmental consultancy company Glowing Green.

Larissa offers insights into how to manage internships, the rise of environmentalism in the face of global challenges, and the importance of purpose both professionally and personally. This is a must-listen for anyone looking to instil more meaning in their business.

Video Transcript:

- Chris Hogan coming to you for the Proactive podcast episode 120. And my guest today is Larissa Rose, from Glowing Green Australia. The first ever guest to come back for a repeat, I think.

- Wow.

Chris Hogan - How are you Rosa?

- Hi, Chris. Great, thank you. I feel super honoured.

- [Narrator] Welcome to the Proactive Podcast, brought to you by Memedia.

Chris Hogan - Last year, we had a great chat. It was very open and honest, we got down and dirty, and into the trenches about how hard it is to run a business and some harsh truths about running business, and being a leader, and I'm very grateful for that. This time, it's almost a year later and we would've caught up earlier, but a few things got in the road, like we're on an international pandemic. But you're also world famous, other than being world famous for being the founder and CEO of Glowing Green Australia. What are you world famous for? You recently won an award, I understand. 

- I have also been known as a biofuel queen too, on the world platform also.

Chris Hogan - Beautiful.

- Yes, the latest awards was really awesome. That was the Gold Coast Women of the Year Awards. And I was the finalist and winner for the mentors category, which is all around mentorship work and engagement work that company Glowing Areen Australia has been doing but was more so specifically my role as an independent, yeah, person here on the Gold Coast.

Chris Hogan - Amazing, and just to clarify, that's an unpaid gig.

- The awards...

Chris Hogan - Well no. The mentorship that you do.

- Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, Glowing Green Australia, we are now up to 21 interns in three years and we have been doing that solid for three years now, working with the different universities here on the Gold Coast and a couple in Brisbane as well, for students that do live on the Gold Coast. Just taking them on, it's all around building leaders of the future that sits with our duty of care that we feel that we need to do to build the sector to be how we want it to be but also make sure we've got some amazing humans who are growing and leading that sector in the future.

Chris Hogan - So that's green energy sustainability sector that you're specifically talking about.

- Yeah, absolutely. So anything to do with environmental management, sustainability, all of the work that we cover in our consultancy company. And that's also, sustainability, also urban, some of the urban planning kind of style construction students also come in as well. So, anything to do with environment pretty much.

Chris Hogan - Fantastic, and how do you see that? How's that industry going in the moment, is it growing? Is it like the interest from town plan is, growing because obviously we need to become greener and, start to maybe protect our planet rather than, pillage it.

- For sure. Well, there's a bit of an environmental social governance role that's really stepped in centrally into businesses over the last five years and more predominantly in the last probably two to three. There's a bit of a duty of care and a sense of understanding and value and significance that the market actually wants to see and work with companies and businesses who have an environmental and social governance and have embedded in their businesses, platforms that associate to taking responsibility with all of that. So, absolutely. And for our business here on the Goald Coast year we've been quite well. Funnily enough, through COVID we've gone up about 45 to 60%. My last accountant just told me, he just told me a few weeks ago. So that's been amazing. I'm not sure on the spike and reason on that but I'm pulling it all on the fact that I've been an awesome leader the last two years and putting all that effort, networking, engaging, doing the work in the backend to really ensure that, it takes time for that stuff to flourish through so...

Chris Hogan - 100%, 100%.

- Yeah. And, I think that you've been on my radar more than anybody else. So I know, my social radar constantly popping up. I know I'm partly to blame for that. I interested, but congratulations on your award and congratulations on doing amazing work with, mentoring students.

Chris Hogan - What do you find to be the biggest aha moment that the students are having like, or is there a common theme?

- Oh my goodness. This so is. So, when we work with our students, we work pretty much. We don't just throw them into a section or an area or a department. And when Going Green is not that huge to have departments anyway but we work and I work quite attentively with them as well, in the sense. So we shape out where they're going The biggest component, it's all well and good they come to us and when all the hard skill sets around how do you write environmental report legislation, what industry is doing in the sector so they can get skill set on that. But the biggest part, Chris, that I really notice over these last few years has been a lot of that mentoring, probably about 40% of the work that they do with us, and we need to provide for them, is skill-setting them with life skillsets, self ownership awareness, their mindset around where they're going, what they're doing and that full accountability that really does surface up in that. And you notice like anything, it's like someone in the workplace might completely lose it or not manage something quite well. It could be because of a behavioural or thought process or an attitude or an outlook on things. So, we really start to identify a lot with the students when we're timeline mapping out where they're going and what they want to do and achieve in eight weeks with us, what that means for them and what that means for us to feel that 50, 50 value adding for both parties is when we map out that project work, we've got deadlines every week and this is what we're doing. And we find barriers sometimes around self worth and value for some of the students to go, oh, I'm not sure if I should connect with that person or not even taking ownership of working out who the top five or 10 companies that they want to work for or who that is, or take leadership on connecting with them on LinkedIn or attending an event. So a lot of that work that we end up doing is around that personal growth stuff, which in turn when you get that under control and you can take that sense of ownership of where you're going and where you're at, you can move propel forward on leading yourself to feel the fear and do it anyway and have intentionality around where you're going and what you're doing.

Chris Hogan - So I'm hearing sort of confidence, emotional intelligence open-mind in this, the barriers that they come up against when working with you in that was nine weeks did you say?

- Yeah. Approximately, yeah.

Chris Hogan - I guess they're gonna be relatively small in scale but I think going from university to the real world, it's kinda quite a shock. So they'd be given responsibility, is a huge one. And how are they dealing with that?

- Yeah, well, when you do an internship with us, it's not like, oh well here, we'll flick you some work. We're not sure what we're doing every week but we'll flick you something to give you some real life tangible experience. It's actually like a job description. So every time I've got an intern we curtail it to be a job description with KPIs deliverables and we attach you in some way or shape or form to any real life tangible project that we have. One to give you a sense of an accountability and ownership, it adds value obviously significantly for you as a student to speak to something that's on a public domain or to go, oh, well, look, this is in my portfolio which instils confidence in you. But also from that it adds value to us and our business model as well. It helps me stretch as well with my leadership skills. I've grown and evolved immensely understanding the difference between a boss and a leader. I was probably instilled a lot with the boss theory and methodology from parents and upbringing and raising through work and career and then really flipping that, and to really stretch it out, you need to be exposing yourself to that and come up and work with people who push you into the corners, push me to stretch my leadership. Oh my God, do I want to feel reactive around this? Or am I going to create a solution orientated outcome around that and not, why didn't I get done? What do you mean it's late? So, yeah. So pulling back around into that is that we really pull it into that project based which does give them that accountability. So every week they actually will identify and if they are late, bringing something to the forefront, we have those weekly catch-ups and talk about stuff, whether it was in the office or actually through zoom, that is okay. Well, where's that at? What's going on? Why is that? Like, what's been happening for you? What have you not been managing enough? Which is really, sometimes I notice sometimes some students are all it some summer in denial, bit of ego and hide it, and then it starts to surface. And then other times some students are like sorry, I don't even know how to manage things like that. So it's interesting. That's good.

Chris Hogan - Yeah, we've had several interns here and I think the hardest has been during the past six months, one day a week via zoom and it's so easy to forget they even exist. I have to say, it's been my worst effort this last six months with internships and then having to be a mental health sort of coach as well. You, know it's been a difficult time being separated from people so had off to. So, I can see that being in the trenches and actually being a leader, there's always that thing where we can always learn things but we don't really learn them as well until we teach them. They become embedded in our fibres. So, have you been, I guess, pulled, like by any training leadership training or anything like that or is it mostly pushed from, I guess the being in that situation that you're being forced to lead.

- Yeah, it's interesting. 'Cause obviously being a parent, it kind of initiates that in you isn't it around that leadership and behaviour that you model will be replicated subconsciously. So you still gotta be conscious of all those things you do.

Chris Hogan - Yeah, my 15 year old's teaching me that very well at the moment, like, oh, ouch, I can start here myself. set up. How can I remodel that. Yeah,

- And so, yeah. I think for me it's probably 50 much 50, 50 coupled. Understanding having a conviction within myself and a duty of care to feel like there's a role and an importance for us to build this industry and sector in obviously an environment sustainability which I'm sitting in and cleaner bio economy to build the ladies, instil confidence in them, and drive that female leadership as well because I've stood in many male masculine heavy-orientated sectors and roles within my industry, which have challenged me as well with self esteem. So, that has been a key part of why I've been wanting to do it, but it's been a bit of both, having the students is really curtailed and got it quite specific around well, yeah. Then it does need to be more leader settler. So I need to level up and step up. And then, the other pressure on, I guess on that has been my own personal growth and understanding around, learning from children and I've got teenagers as well. So you learn when you see it, you're like, oh, ouch, I probably could've shifted that behaviour taught them when I was three. And then that personal component as well. So, I think it a bit of both on that coming from the physical part of having the students and then my own self ownership as well. And I want to level up and I want to be the best version I need to do. I need to put time in to do that. And that in turn needs to flow in across to, yeah, when I go to the students on my side.

Chris Hogan - Yeah, 100%. So, has there been any leadership training that you've done?

- No.

Chris Hogan - Amazing.

- No.

Chris Hogan - Well done.

- Just part of books and-

Chris Hogan - Constant awareness.

- And awareness, books and awareness and understanding, and you absorb a lot and listen to a lot of different conversations and stuff. And something has really crystallised a lot for me lately is been around having intentionality. And when you really sit with something can go, well, whether that's intentionality to decide who you're going to hang out with or intentionality around a project or who are you going to partner with in your job or your business, like when you just work on that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago at a female event around having intentionality in every goal dream and decision you make. So, well, why am I doing it? And then that splits egocentric purpose impactful great positive resonating things that can come out of that, that create that legacy impact. So when you do start by being really wanting to embed a lot of that, of lightly, and that into my personal professional and life's goals as well. So, it's my big one at the moment. Intentionality.

Chris Hogan - Yeah, cool. Which another way that would save purpose and are you on this new purpose train at the moment? Like it's relatively new for people like, we're stepping away from vision and mission and going, and purpose and values. Are you on that sort of line of thought at the moment?

- Yeah, yeah. And it's funny how, when you start doing that work and stuff like the universe starts aligning across an opportunities and people, and then you really start thinking about where you're going again. And it's definitely been a reshift and reset within myself and the business model again on having intentionality purposeful, impactful change. And what is that and what does that mean to us? What does that mean to me? How do I add value to my staff and my contractors, but also to clients and audience. And when you start reverse engineering that, exchanging different systems and thought processes and frameworks and management systems on how you do stuff. So, yeah, definitely. It's definitely been, I can feel that shift and tide and you picked up on it really well there Chris, that it's a space that I'm really feeling that we're just getting our groove in really well and it's feeling good and comfortable and nourishing for myself and my team and for my industry and sector as well 'cause I've got a lot of amazing ideas and concepts I want to embed. I'm just going to take one time here and there.

Chris Hogan - So, how far out have you sort of planned your purpose? Is it a 10 year, five year, three year, one year?

- Yeah, I've got really good, clear purpose within myself, obviously where I'm going with my profile and industry over the next 10 to 15 years, what that looks like and what that means. I'm also okay with some of that, can be ever changing as well at times. With Going Green Australia, it obviously runs alongside that as well. Spend a lot of time. I love COVID for the fact of grounding you down, back down to the trenches, my favourite saying. And making you reset, refresh about where you're at and what you're doing and what you wanna do. So it's been good to get crystal clear on that and get a lot more clarity for me and my profile, I've always understood there's a lot more platform to me to drive that women leadership, to be able to be seen as a spokesman, to instil confidence, lift people up around and set a platform that can really help amplify women where they are now but also people within our environment and sector and even drive this sector. And I like to see myself and I know I will be overseas in about 12 to 15 years. I can see that space taking quite a nice leadership global role. I've been aligning that for some time and I know it will come in regards to my leadership with women and building a big bio environmental portfolio on that so...

Chris Hogan - Awesome.

- Yeah.

Chris Hogan - Awesome. How does like competition look in your industry? Is it fierce? Is it boiling red ocean or is it pretty much blue ocean? So you almost feel like you're the only person in there.

- Yeah. Interesting discussion paste, this one, because I have actually, Going Green Australia has, we've actually worked with some of our competitors. So we're, obviously, environmental consultancy advisory company. So there's lots of advisory businesses out there. And we have worked with a couple to deliver on really great projects. So I have made a mission on myself a couple of years ago to ensure that none of that is gonna be there from my positioning in the industry. So I've gone out and seeped and connected with some of our competitors. Some of them I've invited them in and given them work that my capabilities of our company, we can do, but we might be a bit stretched. So to build that rapport and to dismantle that whole ego century oh, competitors, we don't really work with you. Oh, you've got that client. Is I've given away some really great jobs. And from that, I've just seen amazing that can bloom it just spells and displaces any of that sort of controversy there. But obviously mindful there's some competitors that probably wouldn't want above it, but there's some other ones out there who are pretty chilled. Most of the environment people are pretty chilled. So yeah, that's been really good. And two companies here on the Gold Coast we've done that work with, and I'm really excited because I can see that we've been able to collate with them on some other projects and good sounding boards. Like, why would you not want to have that sounding board? I've seen amazingly amount of lawyers out there on the Gold Coast who have all the different businesses and companies and they are an amazing posse of females, may I say. So congrats to all those females on the Goald Coast who are lawyers. 'Cause I can see their network is beautiful.

Chris Hogan - Yeah, I think I know a few of them, and 100%, they're doing awesome things. And so how do you feel, it's great that you've positioned yourself there but was there ever a time where seeing your competitors, do things that should inspire you and stead, actually sort of crush you a little and go, wow, like, why am I not there yet? Like...

- Oh God, yeah Yeah, and I didn't ask you a question properly but it's not fiercely competitive, but it's solid. And Going Green Australia is really just nudged hard the last three years. So I'm so excited about what that is and what that shape is informing forming now and why certain businesses who worked with other companies are working aligning with us now. So I'm excited to find out what's happening behind that shift and move, but yeah, absolutely. Like I have definitely come from and I'm so transparent as all hell, I won't say the wordI normally say, I always say transparent as something else with the word after it, but yeah, like I've had moments that have made me so egocentric where I'm like, wow, I am so in ego mode right now. Oh my God, look at them, they're doing better. I'll go and I gotta think about that. Or they've probably got someone who's working on all the media and they've got a better strategy and how come they've got all these big contracts and I know they've got a good part of the market or, oh my goodness, they're at that event or why are they speaking? And I love that since when that happens to me, I've got it in check a lot more I reckon the last two years, but it's still there and I'm glad it's still there and I'm happy for it to operate like a 20% rider because it triggers and drives me to be accountable as all hell, take ownership not be complacent and go, okay, well, how can I level up even more to create even a better version of Going Green Australia or myself or whatever. So, I'm all for it, as long as you kind of got it in a check and it's not making you feel shitty and resentful and like one of those like, oh, that person always complains and winters and says bad stuff about other people in the same industry, like no room for that.

Chris Hogan - It's easy to fall into that trap. It's easy to have one of those bad days and do that negative self talk. And the positive self talk is, or my life has become one of the most important things that I need to do especially when I'm teaching people to develop their purpose and their values and how I see people that want to grow to there. but just got that erring on the slight side of doubt. But purpose can actually help bring them out of that straight away, you know, it's like and gratefulness gratitude.

- Yeah.

Chris Hogan - Big one.

- And what do you think I'm going to throw a question to you in this sentence, healthy thing to do on a podcast, is another big thing I really believe in which I do a lot with those interns is emotive connectivity to your goals. So emotive connectivity to what you want your business to look like, what is that, the potential clients? I feel like that is a really great sitting down and getting emotively connected to your goals and your visions and where you're going and where you're at, because it's actually the key driver that amplifies you to get where you wanna get to. So it's interesting if you kind of find that work coming through with all your clients and what you're doing when you're trying to anchor them into dig deep and get that purposeful space. Do you do a lot with that? Like, do you see that emotiveness come through sometimes?

Chris Hogan - So the ultimate goal in marketing is be to be emotionally connected to your audience. If they can have an emotional response to the marketing that you put out, you're winning, right? So it's very hard to measure that. How do you measure that in terms of a KPI or like a comment or whatnot, very difficult. But maybe it's like the watch time like the amount of time that they watched a video, they watched all the way to the end. Like you had them. Maybe it's just some simple comments. Wow, like, that was amazing. This is where it shares. If somebody really likes something like they're in love with it, or they're laughing or it's like, wow, that's a decent wake up call, I'm gonna share that. Then a hundred percent, you winning in that aspect. In terms of being emotionally connected. I love like writing strategies for clients, it's one of my favourite things to do. And delivering that purpose to them after they've sort of told me how they want things to roll out, then I go and say, well, here's what I heard. And here's your 10-year purpose? Here's your 10-year goal. And oftentimes it's something one wants to be the most inspiring or be the most valued or reputable. I think it's like as measured by. And when you go as measured by, it's like, well, what are those measurements? Is it actually like numbers? Is it figures? No, it's not. It's like it was measured by our social impact that we made. Or was measured by, we had zero loss of life or mental health. We supported our entire team through tough times. One of my clients actually about just a month before we started working with them, they had a suicide on site. And, offsite actually. And it was one of the most, like I was proper shocked. You know, it's the first time I'd actually dealt with a client that had a suicide internally. And so mental health became a huge thing. I mean, you can see I'm a huge advocate for it, with living. And so they already had a mental health programme but, clearly they wanted to be better. They were like so driven by that. And so everything became about, you know what? It's safety first. Safety first, just get home to your family and stuff like that. I don't know if that answers your question or I've gone on a tangent.

- It does, I think for everyone, it's around rewriting the metric values, how we've attached things to metrics. Metrics now have such a different narrative. You know, when you were saying that it was around, well, what are you investing in for non-for-profits or how many partnerships and sort of legacy platforms and networks or opportunities or grants or leadership programmes or something that you wanna do over that 10 years with your business model. That is measured by, as you were saying, 'cause I was thinking of looking at a piece of paper and you've got da, da, da measured by, that last thing is always some sort of numerical metric, you know.

Chris Hogan - Oh, we got 10,000 likes on Instagram.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. We wanna be at, like, yeah, 1 million by here. But at the end of the day, I see that has completely flipped now. And those metrics are really written in the sense of, yeah, impactful, purposeful change. And then you're really, really super specific on that at a micro level. What is that and what does that mean? What does that mean in our local community? What does that mean nationally? What does that mean, what can we attach to on a global level? What we can attach that to socially, environmentally, how have we created economic impact as well? So, yeah, so exciting that stuff I can see how you get excited about that.

Chris Hogan - Oh, because you've, I guess being an empath. Like I've had to manage that. That's been an interesting one, but being empathetic when I'm actually developing a purpose and goals for clients, I have to actually really embed myself into their psyche. And so that as measured bias like how would that actually make you feel? How would you feel when you achieve that? Yeah, you'll feel pretty good.

- Yeah.

Chris Hogan - It's gotta get you excited because some...

- Totally.

Chris Hogan - 'Cause those tough times will come and a lot of us going through them right now. And so it's gotta be something that you can easily remember and go, you know what? That's why I get out of bed every morning. That's why I lead 350 people and leadership's tough.

- [Larissa] Yeah.

Chris Hogan - Like I've been leading small teams for quite a while, but I'll be honest, I do want to grow this business well beyond what I've done before. And all that scares me. I'm like, how the hell am I gonna lead like that many people? And then it just comes back to you know what? You just gotta walk the walk race. You've gotta do that work on yourself. And you've got to know that purpose really, really clearly. You've got to know your personal purpose. Why are you getting out of bed in the morning and why are you going to work?

- [Larissa] Yeah.

Chris Hogan - For blokes it should be really simple, especially with my parents, like dads should be really simple. You gotta put food on the table and a roof over their head. For women, they're working their asses off too. Same deal, right? But to be honest, I mean, I don't know really, like for guys it's always sort of like the protector, the provider. It's a pretty simple sort of thing to attach themselves to. A lot of warrior stall traits. But what is it for you? Like, what's your, I guess when you've really got to kick yourself in the ass and get out of bed and get going and it's been, maybe you've had a shear sleep.

- Yeah. I've been an independent female for some time too raising my family. So, I definitely have had to understand the importance of the warrior mode and keeping, I always say, keeping my ship afloat, I've got to keep the ship afloat. Plus I got a captain's steer it as well. So, keeping the wind in the sails has been imperative. So, definitely can understand then respect that masculinity component that comes with that but-

Chris Hogan - And that warrior mindset, I actually did a seminar today at Rubina state high school for kids and I was educating them and I was speaking more to the women than the guys about female warriors and that in Japanese terms, they called Koonu ucci. And that I've met some koonu uchi my time practising in martial arts that would absolutely take us to shreds. And like, you'll see them. And I've had the most amazing people standing beside me that are admirers speck from around the world comment when they've been out the front teaching a technique or something like that in a room full of 300 international warriors, basically. And yeah, oh man, she's killer. And I was saying to the kids this morning it was about having like pure tenacity, to never give in. You're never gonna give up. And that you will fight like a six kilo cat. Well, kitten does. And it's capable of bringing down 150 kilo man. Why? Because they use everything at their disposal everything, every tool and they never give up. So, I mean, that's what I see in, you are you are koonu lucci. And hat off to you, especially being thrown into that situation, being a sole bread winner I think probably gave you a bit of an Oxycontin.

- Yeah, it was a good universe slap here and there. And then the words that resonate with me on that is obviously conviction. The conviction to know that I will do whatever I need to to be doing to get where I need to get to. And I've had my business now for 10 years and the exponential growth that has occurred in the four that I took that leadership on my own as an independent parent, when I separated, has been the best thing ever for me. Because I did get a good universe slap. And it made me step up and take accountability and take the ship Going Green Australia to get it to where I needed to get to, and there was a conviction in that because I needed to, he needed to provide I needed to, keep the cogs moving. And then from there, as the cogs got to still move a little bit more, it's like, okay I can breathe a little bit more now. And then on top of that, okay, well, what am I what do I resonate with with this business? And where am I going. And also too, I think about it. I think about my ups and downs that I've had over the last 10 years it's not always freaking awesome all the time and I'm happy to always talk about that transparently. I think we did and I won't go into it now, but is that you definitely I understood that I was, this is a really great catalyst time for me to model behaviour to my teenage daughters, 17 and 16 now. And that was hands down for me. I feel like the conviction was driven even more because it was an opportunity to showcase what I could do as a mom through some really hunky Dory times

Chris Hogan - You could say, how do we say it? Oh, how have you gone on, like, risk-taking. Right now I feel like we are proper crossroads in the economy, in most people in business we've had the government do some amazing things for over the past, almost six months. And now it's time for a lot of that funding to sort of slip away and that support and get back to, I guess get out of the bubble economy that we've been in and get back to serious business. Where are you at? Like on, on taking risks? Are you, are you going to like your purpose hasn't changed your goals haven't changed. and is there any, is there any extra things that you might have to undertake in order to reach those goals or I high road, low road, how do you go with taking risks?

- Yeah, I've done a few hunky Dory risk again over the last five years. One of them was like, oh, ouch, that really got me. it was either run the gauntlet and just gonna go for it and give it a while. And, okay. I did it as hard yard as I could. It might not have worked out as well and efficiently as I did, but Epic learning lessons from that one. And that was probably ground bed planning for me. I had to learn level out with my planning skills on a couple of things but yeah, I'm really, we're in a phase right now that looking for a new office space I've got like all these amazing interns who want to work with us now, and I've got opportunities to do some part time roles. So for me, it's a little bit like, kind of feeling like, oh my goodness, that's a really big shit to do, because like that means you've got to ensure stabilise reoccurring income stream and all of that, and your business model sells lie was like, okay cool. Break it down. Let's get really real about the feseatch.. Got my head in my numbers way better this year full ownership, like I'm talking full fledged with my accountant, me being super disciplined looking in them, accountability, every way to what my numbers inside my zero, understand what's going on, trajectory goals, planning out with excels and really methodical version to build a framework in methodology in my head now to go well, this is the actual, and this is the trajectory. So now I'm like, well now I'm not just like puffing thinking grey clouds and air. I'm actually transparent. I know exactly the capabilities of that is that possible now, which takes that fear that sits in aside and around risk and goes, okay, I'm still feeling a little bit of the fee and the risk around that. There's always going to be that, but feel the fear and do it anyway Larissa, that amazing book by Susan Jeffers. If you haven't read it before, please write it and jump and do it. So I'm doing that now with looking new office space commercial office space. And then also I'm doing that with taking on a couple of new staff to level up. to get the business where it needs to get to. 'Cause I'm in that spot where I was like, you can only do so much Larissa and for you to get where you need to get to, you're gonna have to jump. Sorry, I just needed to disable some of the things which were sat around alone around money. So if that was becoming a little bit of a barrier my decision like, Oh no, no, no, no. We'll get in there and sold it out. Eliminate it as much mess as you can, process of elimination really isn't it. And then move forward. So growth is growth is hard. Growth is hard, no doubt.

Chris Hogan - Yeah. And we're definitely going through a stage of growth now that it's got me a little bit, on edge And I'm 100% on board with knowing your numbers far out. It does help a lot. And does stop that a 3:00 AM wake up, anxiety, breath, it's a little so funny that you're going into an office when lots of people are actually probably never gonna return to office life. Again, have you thought about staying remote? Yeah. So we pulled away, just pulled away from our office and then we've been all remote. So it's been easy. It's been easy is what we've found it could be. That definitely makes sense, it's been easy comparative to other business models for us. Because we've been quite used to working remote desktop. Environmental consultants in environmentalist are quite used to doing desktop analysis work and working remote. So, for us. You know sustainability one Oh one for us was like well, what's the purpose and the need for the office. And I asked this question a lot because is that really egocentric to say we've got an office and we're really awesome and professional. And we're really big because we've got an office because let's be honest that some of the BS that sits around behind that sometimes and at the same time, connectivity with staff and working on things and having stakeholders and partnerships. And we do a lot of community work and have a lot of partnerships. And we co-sponsor and found a lot of other groups and stuff. So I've missed that gap there on that. That's a bit displaced. So going to keep something super duper simple not over the top but I wanted to ensure that it was about an necessity. It wasn't just, Oh, we've got an office. So I really cool. Yeah. Question though, I asked off camera before we started was people will company owners and companies organisations wanting to become more sustainable wanting to become more green. What's some of the things that they like the easiest things that are great you can start doing to, in order to do that and how do they, and how do they measure it? 

- Okay. First thing that we do when we work with businesses is kind of pull apart your market, your audience your customers, your clients, but also your supply chain. So the input that comes in, what is that? What does that look like depending on products and services you offer. So obviously with hotel chains and restaurants and, hospitality industry, I should say not hotel chains. I wish I was doing hotel chains by the way, It's that they might look at all the food, that products that are coming in so for them to want to take sustainability one one is one and do a whole, or we're going to revise, what is that? What does that mean to us when we need to look at what's going in, is doing all of that ordering. 

Chris Hogan - So we'll have to become vegan and it's all fine. Right?

- So easy steps, really practical ones do an assessment your supply chain. Cause it's tricky. Cause it depends on the type of business you've got and sector that you're in, how goods and services might get, come and deliver to your office. But also what are you doing internally within your business model? What products are you consuming could use, start using different types of paper or products that you then in turn can talk, I guess, from a sort of more metric value you decided to go with this company now, who's a much more socially conscious company? B corporations which is kind of like this buzzword, but to break it dowm, dworking with companies who are very socially conscious around their impact in ethos. So you could support and align to different kinds of non-for-profits or programmes that have got that B Corp level basically come organisations that have a purpose beyond profit. Absolutely. I'm sorry. That's, that's one of my things external add on, but let's be real about it. You can attach yourself to, donating to Wells or doing all these external things, but at the end of the day, actual purpose and impact sits with you. The N the core, then it goes outward. So you need to get the internal sorted and clean first. So take an audit oversee your water waste and energy overseas supply chain, what products you're using how things are done and wrapped packaging how your cousin, how, how your staff come in. Like at my other office, you would not be able to walk into our office with a single use cup. Like it was just that is just not on like, just social responsibility but you need to drive that leadership in your staff and not make it that it's like well, this is the protocol, and this is what we do. There's a sense of why and the accountability and the ownership. And if you want to lead and work with our business and our company, these are our ethics, this is our ethos. This is what we aligned to. And no, we can't seen with you guys loitering around me. Single use cups is totally bad and costs cross contradiction there. So yeah, that's probably the easy way to do that. And then you can go further.

Chris Hogan - Yeah The worry I think, I think we're going to a networking thing and we'll probably bump into each other tomorrow morning. And I forgot for those of you that might have a single use plastic cup. you're not going to be seen standing next to the Larissa. I might have a camera there just to see if I can catch something. There's a meme that will be coming on now. Honestly, thank you so much for joining me again, Larissa hat off to you and all of your achievements, your proper female warrior your proper Cuno ICI. And I'm glad to have you as a friend and a guest on the show. Thanks so much.

- Yeah, excellent. And thank you, Chris. Really value that you create opportunities and platforms and really engaging conversations. I just value your heaps as well.

Chris Hogan - So tell that camera, basically, how people follow you and stay across what it is you're doing.

- Yeah absolutely. You can just follow a glowing green Australia. It's all sitting there. Just anything glowing green Australia, the risk sororities. Yeah. Obviously Instagram I'd shake a lot of leadership on driving what it is from an independent profile position on the reality of being a mom and running a business and doing all the things that I do. So, yeah, you can find me as a resource as well.

Chris Hogan - Awesome. Thanks so much.

- Cheers.

- Cheers. Cheers guys.