Episode Six - The Innovation Researcher
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Transcript
0:00:23 - (Nicole): It's time to Bring Your Kid to Work. Hey, everyone. It's time to bring your kid to work. It's the family podcast that explores the world of work through the eyes of parents and their kids. Each week, we interview one parent and their child to chat about what they do for work, what they like, what they don't like and how they've got there in the first place. Let's find out who we're talking to today.
Our guests today are Lucy and her daughter, Erin.
Dr Lucy Cameron is team leader innovation and economics at Data61, the part of CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, that works with data and analytics. She's like a real life explorer, but instead of searching for hidden treasures, she explores ideas and projects that help us all understand our world and our society better and help us prepare for the future. Lucy is so passionate about innovation and creating the right kind of environment to bring great ideas to life that she wrote a book about it. Her latest research is about the big trends happening in sports that people who make decisions in government and business will use to help them plan for the future. She brings with her her daughter, Erin, who came into the studio reading a book George Orwell's 1984, which also talks a lot about the future. She has big plans for when she leaves school and is working hard to make it all happen.
This was a brilliant chat and they both made me laugh a lot. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's get on with the show.
Welcome to Bring your Kid to Work. Today's episode is called the Innovation Researcher and I have really excellent guests for you guys today. I'm so excited for this conversation. Can I have our first guest introduce herself please?
(Erin) Hi, I'm Erin.
(Nicole) Hello, Erin, and you are how old?
(Erin) 14.
(Nicole) 14. Excellent, so that means you are in grade 8, I think at school, and you brought with you your mum. What's your mum's name?
(Erin) Alicia Cameron, otherwise known as Lucy.
0:02:21 - (Nicole)
I haven't actually gotten into that before. Okay, when do you go from Alicia to Lucy?
(Lucy) Well, I pronounce it Aleessia and most of the Australian population pronounces it Alisha, and it just at one point started to you know grade too much, so I just went. I'll go with something easy that everyone can pronounce. My mother wanted to call me Lucy when I was born, and it's kind of like my family name of Lucy, so I just went call me Lucy, wow, and everyone did, and it was instant. Yes, yeah.
0:02:53 - (Nicole)
The amount of trouble that people have with Lessio is quite extraordinary really. So yeah, I imagine Alicia is exactly the same kind of challenge. Erin. What does your mum do for a job, Do you know?
0:03:04 - (Erin)
She analyses data trends, I think, yeah, basically a bad psychic. But no, I don't.
0:03:14 - (Lucy)
I prefer mad psychic than bad psychic. I think we can go with that Potato potahto.
0:03:22 - (Nicole)
So, Lucy, your official title is Team Leader Innovation and Economics for Data 61, which is a part of the CSIRO.
(Lucy) That's right, yeah,
(Nicole) Okay. So the CSIRO. I've heard of it before. People call it sigh-row as well. What does it mean?
0:03:36 - (Lucy)
Well, it stands for Commonwealth Industrial and Scientific Research Organisation. We're from the organisation that invented Wi-Fi. Finally, CSIRO was set up to assist Australian industry, particularly agriculture and chemicals industry in Australia, so that we could become better at exporting and better at growing. What the world really needed at that particular point. It was really to help Australian industry, and we're still very, very applied in our science. So, yeah, that's where CSIRO sits. It's in applied sciences and it's the best organisation to work for. It's really satisfying to see all this fantastic technology be developed all around you, just surrounded by super smart people everywhere you look in CSIRO,
0:04:24 - (Nicole)
You are in this room because you've got Erin next to you!
As a researcher in the innovation and economic space, what do you think your mum does all day long? Is she outside? Is she inside? Is she with people? Is she alone? What does she do, Erin?
0:04:39 - (Erin)
So what I've gathered, she mainly writes stuff I don't know. So on a computer typing out stuff, Presumably yeah, with people by herself, I feel like she would interact, at least sometimes, with people. She's not just in her evil lair just typing away madly muttering to herself with scientific gadgets in the background. But yeah, I don't know she could be like that.
0:05:12 - (Nicole)
Do you get to play with scientific gadgets Lucy?
0:05:14 - (Lucy)
I don't get to play with them as much as I was at university and those sorts of places, but I do see a lot of labs. Our sites are full of labs. There's a lot of growing experiments. There's a lot of testing of technology, that sort of thing. We have a robotics room in our site at Hurston. It's fun just to watch it without actually being the hands-on person. But yeah, I guess I do sit in my room a lot and type a lot, that much is true. People scientist and we do do a lot of research online these days and a lot of teamwork online because we have offices all around Australia. So I can work with anyone from anywhere at any time.
0:05:54 - (Nicole)
So do you sit and write reports and I know that Erin said analyse data like a bad psychic, mad psychic. Is that the kind of stuff that you do all day?
0:06:07 - (Lucy)
Yeah, yeah, it is.
So I'm in the economics area now and what we do is try and prove the economic case for adopting new technologies, so we can adopt technology and become hugely more productive.
And that's the sort of thing we're looking at, so that we can, you know, encourage more people to do it and to do it at the leading edge, because once we're more productive then we lead the world in creating that thing or that product or that service. So, yeah, that's the sort of work we do is all of this examination of the impact of new technologies and how they're going to help or hinder us into the future. But I have come from and this is where Erin be referring to the mad psychic thing is from a foresight area, and what foresight is is long-term futures of five to ten years. You have to look at the mega trends which are occurring around them, like the demographic trends and the political trends and the technological trends, and work out what does that mean for sport or what does that mean for tourism or what does that mean for agriculture into the future in Australia, and then you can plan with that knowledge, and that's the sort of work we do in conjunction with industry.
0:07:18 - (Nicole)
Lucy, when you were a little girl and you were thinking I know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a researcher in innovation. Is that something that happened?
0:07:28 - (Lucy)
No, I wanted to do something with animals. I wanted to be a naturalist like Harry Butler or David Attenborough. They were my heroes, and so I used to spend my summers catching lizards and, you know, having looking at cicadas and climbing trees, and I just loved that whole lifestyle and the idea that you could go around studying the natural world. So I went to university and my first degree was in ecology, and in ecology I studied statistics. From there I got a job in a university as a statistics officer. I kind of hated that work. I didn't like it very much.
0:08:05 - (Nicole)
You wanted to be outside climbing a tree.
0:08:08 - (Lucy)
That's right, I did. I wanted to be out in the bush and I did do work on feral cats in the Northern Territory, but I gave it up mainly because I got an allergy up there, which meant that I couldn't complete the studies. So I came back down south and I got another job in a university From there. That led to a PhD and then that led to working government in innovation policy and then from there I got the job in foresight at data 61. And I also got a Smithsonian fellowship at one stage and went over to the US and studied innovation hot spots for three months over there. And that was just amazing. That was fascinating.
0:08:44 - (Nicole)
I love that so impressive and that led to you writing your book about innovation hot spots.
(Lucy) That's right, yeah,
(Nicole) For those listening, Lucy is the author of two books, because one is not enough, apparently Too good. And having a full-time job and, you know, full-time family responsibilities, you have to also write books on top of that. That makes us all feel a little bit unaccomplished. Erin, your mum said that her job that she's got now wasn't the one that she dreamed of when she was little. What is the job? Not that you're little because you're 14, but what is the job that you dream of now? What do you think you want to do?
(Erin) Oh, I want to be a doctor -very achievable dream, I know.
(Nicole) For you? I think absolutely yeah. So you want to be a doctor? What kind of doctor?
0:09:28 - (Erin)
Preferably a paediatrician, so children's doctor, don't confuse it with a podiatrist, please. I've had way too many people do that.
0:09:35 - (Nicole)
Yeah, which is a foot doctor? Yeah, very different to being a kid doctor.
0:09:39 - (Erin)
Yeah, very, very different yeah.
0:09:42 - (Nicole)
So why do you want to be a paediatrician? Where did that dream come from?
0:09:46 - (Erin)
Well, first off, I really like science and maths, but I think mainly science at the moment yeah, particularly biology and chemistry. So there's that aspect. I'd be doing that all day. But also I am a very sickly child. I went to the hospital so many times as a kid and it's a very calming environment for me. Just enjoy being there, which makes me sound like a psycho.
0:10:12 - (Nicole
No, it's a place where answers are found. I get that. Yeah, problems are solved, people are helped. Yeah, so you love science and you love maths. So those are the things that you really love at school.
0:10:23 - (Erin)
Yeah, and engineering. But yeah, science and maths are really my go-to subjects.
0:10:29 - (Nicole)
Engineering is also about problem-solving.
0:10:31 - (Erin)
Yeah, there's a trend I am noticing.
0:10:34 - (Nicole)
Yeah, so those are the things you love in school. What do you love outside of school?
0:10:39 - (Erin)
Music. I really do love music. Anything from before the 2000s or 2010?. I've been listening to David Bowie and Abba, weirdly enough, the entire week before this. Yeah, yeah, it's really awesome. So do you play music? I do play the drums, yeah, I know, it's just a really nice hobby.
0:11:01 - (Nicole)
Yeah, you get to hit stuff and make music. Yeah, I think that sounds brilliant.
0:11:06 - (Erin)
Yeah, it's a nice change, like I could be doing my maths homework and then I just go and blast ACDC and play the drums that's amazing.
0:11:15 - (Nicole)
Do you want to keep that happening?
0:11:16 - (Erin)
Yeah, it's important to have a good hobby, a creative hobby that's kind of aside from your regular day-to-day life.
0:11:25 - (Nicole)
What do you do outside of work, Lucy that's fun and creative, or just fun?
0:11:27 - (Lucy)
I really love bushwalking and I've recently joined Brisbane Women's Bushwalking Club so I can just go out and spend a day like and it's so great because it's ad hocly organised so anyone can put up an event and other people will join in and you can just go near or far and get to know other people why you're walking. And I love horse riding too. But I very rarely really get to do that. But when I do it takes me back to my childhood, because I did grow up with horses. Oh wow, and I miss them. I've missed them my entire life. So I'd love to at some point when I retire, while I'm still able to ride, have another horse again. That is a good retirement plan. I like that. I like it too. I just hope I'm not too old by that stage to provide policies?
0:12:15 - (Nicole)
Definitely not. Otherwise, you just get a cart and you can just be pulled by the horse and enjoy that, just sit in the back, relaxing. So, Erin, as a paediatrician, what do you think you get to spend your days doing Like your mum's? Doing things like sitting at the computer, writing reports, having meetings with people, collaborating, trying to figure out, solving problems together and see big trends. What does a paediatrician do all day long? Do you think?
0:12:39 - (Erin)
Well, I don't know, but I'd imagine just under working in a hospital or in their clinic or wherever they work and sitting down with patients, and then talking to them.
0:12:50 - (Nicole)
I think paediatricians probably have to calm down parents.
(Erin) Oh, yeah, that would be a big one yeah.
0:12:57 - (Lucy)
I remember a very highly paid paediatrician making me a cup of tea at one stage. She's going to be okay.
0:13:04 - (Nicole
It's scary stuff, so you want to be there to help people feel less scared.
0:13:08 - (Erin)
Yeah, it would definitely be an emotional job, but if you go about it the right way and with the attitude that you want to help people, it would be a very rewarding job.
0:13:18 - (Nicole)
Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Well, and you appreciated the doctors that were helping you. So, being up at it, it's almost like a giving back, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, so cool. What, then, makes a good job, Erin? What do you think makes a good job?
0:13:31 - (Erin)
One with variety. I would hate to be doing the same thing over and over and over again. That would be yeah, it's my idea of hell. It's yep and also something that you enjoy. I wouldn't want a job as an author because I mean, I like writing to an extent, but if it was my job, I just wouldn't find it that fun. So, yeah, you have to enjoy what you do.
0:14:03 - (Nicole)
It's interesting the difference between a paediatrician who'd be in a hospital working with lots of people and an author who would be sitting by themselves. I think you've revealed something here about what you like as well. You like being part of a team,
0:14:15 - (Erin)
Weirdly enough, I'm not too bad alone. I'm an introvert. I, yeah, put me in a social situation and I just go into the corner or by the snack bar or wherever it is, and just yeah, don't talk to anyone, I don't know.
I want some feeling of community. Yeah, yeah.
0:14:36 - (Nicole)
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, do you get that feeling of community in the work that you do, Lucy?
0:14:43 - (Lucy)
Yeah, I think I do. You know, there are a lot of days because post pandemic, I think, like a lot of workplaces, it's been that struggle to bring people back into the office. But when we are in the office, because we do the same kind of work, we know the pros and cons of it and we can talk to each other about it and discuss connections and how to do it better, and I think there is just a general appreciation of each other's work. You get to ask questions and you get to know the other scientists, even if you've never met them, sort of thing. So I do think there is a sense of community. I think any team which has to work towards a common goal develops this sense of community too, because you have to rely on each other. You have to rely on each other's separate skills and I think that's where you find your community is in your separate but valued roles.
0:15:32 - (Nicole)
Yeah, yeah. It's amazing what you can do when you all have a common goal that you want to go towards and everybody puts in the bit of skill that they have, because we're not all good at the same things, we're all good at different things, which is perfect for a team. Lucy, you said before that you did some research on feral cats and you were out in the bush and found out that you had this allergy, which is a real bummer. But what was your first job?
0:15:54 - (Lucy)
My first job was in a factory in the Edgell's cannery in Bathurst and it was a real shock and I think you know coming out of high school working is a real shock to a lot of people. Yeah, because you're nurtured and you're working towards these exams and goals and that sort of thing, and then you come out and you realise what the real world is like for most people. And anyway, my real world at that point was a cannery in Bathurst and it was something out of the Industrial Revolution. People did mechanical tasks all day, like pick up potatoes and cut the bad bits off them and put them back on a line, or just stack cans in a repetitive movement on a conveyor belt. Or I had one job in the frozen corn section where I had to look at the conveyor belt of corn kernels and just flick off the brown ones and that was your job all day, like for an eight hour shift.
0:16:48 - (Nicole)
Eight hours you were looking for brown corn kernels.
0:16:50 - (Lucy)
That's right. Walkmans were just making it onto the scene but you had no music. It was a real shock what real employment looked like post high school and it was one of the reasons why I just went. I've got to go to university. I'm not going to save up for a gap year of travelling because I cannot stand this working life and I think I was there for two or three weeks, like not very long. Wow, working whether it's Edgill's, cannery or an office job or anything outside high school is a shock, or can be a shock to people, and it is about finding community and having people to talk to about your work around you. It did make me go to university straight away.
0:17:33 - (Nicole)
So then, how do you define a good job? Erin's saying a good job is variety and doing something you love.
0:17:38 - (Lucy)
I think there's all those things. Variety is really important, like I get to work on different reports all the time and I get to meet new people and I get to think about things in different ways all the time, and I always am challenging my preconceptions. Autonomy is a big one, the more control you had over your work, life and the workflow around you.
0:17:59 - (Nicole)
To be in charge of your own time and work a little bit more.
0:18:03 - (Lucy)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think that's a big part of a happy workplace and I also think you know, having goals that's a big part of it too. So if you can see what your goals are five years down the track and where you're kind of heading, that makes me happy too.
0:18:18 - (Nicole)
And the people you work with.
0:18:19 - (Lucy)
Very important. Yeah, I think. Yeah. So it's just like a partner in a way. You've got to have some kind of values alignment, or at least some kind of agreement of respect along values, so you may not agree with them but you respect why they think like they do.
0:18:34 - (Nicole)
So you said you went to university after being at the Edgell factory. What other jobs did you do then?
0:18:38 - (Lucy)
So I had a range of student jobs. I worked in a neuropathology lab where my job was to go down to the morgue and get people's brains after they'd died and they were having an autopsy Take them up to the neuropathology lab, fix them in form alone for two weeks and then after two weeks they were sort of rubbery enough to cut them on a deli slicer. And that was my job. And then the pathologist would come in and look for things like multiple sclerosis or the regions of the brain which were affected by stroke, or if there was any other abnormality in the brain which could have been responsible for that person's death.
0:19:15 - (Nicole)
So you, as a uni student, were able to use a deli slicer to give families, answers Me when I was at high school was able to use a deli slicer at my mum and dad's butcher's shop to give people ham.
0:19:27 - (Lucy)
So we look at them in quite slightly different ways Slightly different ways Our views on deli slicers.
0:19:34 - (Nicole)
That's amazing. I love that, but it gives you an appreciation, doesn't it, of all the work that goes into finding scientific answers.
0:19:43 - (Lucy)
And it was fascinating. Like you know, occasionally you'd get a boxer's brain and you'd see the damage that caused to their actual left or right ventricles and the partition between them and you could see. It was fascinating to learn about conditions on the brain, but it was also very confronting for a uni student to deal with going to the morgue every day to pick up people's brains Absolutely.
0:20:08 - (Nicole)
That sounds very confronting. It also sounds, though, that you've got a quest for knowledge, in the same way that Erin has a quest for knowledge. So, Erin, you want to find out answers for things, don't you? Yeah, yeah, is that why you love maths and science, particularly because they have answers.
0:20:24 - (Erin)
Yeah, a lot of times I've been frustrated in English or drama because, I mean, with maths and science, there's a definite answer, like you do this, you do this and you get this answer and it is correct. Or with science, this happens because this and this and this and these factors all combine to make that. And yeah, but with drama, which I do at school, there's no wrong answer. Anything can be interpreted in so many different ways and you know, I do enjoy it, but it's like it breaks your brain a little bit.
Yeah, I have a very logical mind, I'm very much a logical person, and just the thought that goes into creativity, it blows my mind. I couldn't do it. I yeah, for a job no.
0:21:22 - (Lucy)
Yeah, too much ambiguity in there, yeah.
0:21:25 - (Erin)
I respect musicians and you know authors and stuff, because I just I can't do it.
0:21:33 - (Nicole)
I think that's the important thing in any job that you do is to understand that people doing other jobs have got a really important, wonderful job to do too. Yeah, Lucy, what did your parents do? Why did you want to go to university so bad. Were they people who went to university?
0:21:48 - (Lucy)
Yeah, they both went to university. Well, both were teachers. Wow, my father was the one that really gave me the mass and science edge. We'd gone car trips and he'd talk about the periodic table and we'd have to guess the periodic table or capitals around the world. He really loved maths. It was never.
If you're going to go to university, you'll find that out when you go to university. So it was almost like it was imprinted on me from a very young age that I would finish high school, get a good mark that was a given and then go down to university. And I went to Sydney Uni and did science. I didn't get a brilliant mark in my HSC, but I got enough to get into science and then I started to get good marks at uni. If I was advising kids, I'd say you're going to have setbacks along the way. You know there are going to be points where your dreams are going to be shattered and you won't be able to do what you've always dreamt you're going to do. But that doesn't mean you can't do other things you're going to love doing. And it is about finding that happy appreciation place of being appreciated. I think that's really big for me, of doing a job where you feel appreciated.
0:22:52 - (Nicole)
It's really important to feel appreciated. What did it feel like when you realised your dream of being the female Australian David Attenborough wasn't going to be your thing, it wasn't going to happen? Yeah. When you realised that you had that allergy
0:23:06 - (Lucy)
Yeah, I felt pretty low.I mean, you know, I came back to Sydney.
I lived at my mum's house After having the autonomy of being at the house, yeah, being this wild girl of Kakadu To come back to Sydney and live at home in the back room of my mother's house. It was crushing. I think at that point I focused on just other things I wanted to do. So I went back to uni, and that's always been my go to is, if I'm unhappy, to go back and learn some more and do something that you might like to do. If I'm not happy, I can go and learn something which makes me happier.
0:23:40 - (Nicole)
I love that. Learning makes you happy. Also, I think that's a really important lesson, because sometimes you have a dream about a job that you're going to do, and you work really hard to do the job that you think you're going to do, and then it doesn't work out and you then go OK, well, what's the next dream? So, Erin, in the world where paediatrician isn't a possibility, what else might you like to do?
0:24:02 - (Erin)
I really do love engineering. I love being able to solve a problem, because that's really all engineering is. That would be a pretty cool job if I didn't get my dream.
0:24:13 - (Nicole)
Yeah, for sure. I was just thinking, Erin, does your mum like a job?
0:24:18 - (Erin)
But I think generally you enjoy your job, at least to a certain degree.
0:24:24 - (Lucy)
So yeah, yeah, I think I love my job, except, you know, everyone gets tired. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You could love, love, love, love, love, whatever it is you're doing, and be tired. So I think you have to work out ways to do the highs and lows in any job that you do. Yeah.
0:24:42 - (Nicole)
The way you talk about the scientific research and things that are happening at CSIRO. It does sound like you really believe in what they're doing, though - the highs and lows you can kind of get through a little bit.
0:24:55 - (Lucy)
Yeah, totally, yeah, no, it's. I feel like I'm in a privileged workplace in Australia. I think working for CSIRO is a privilege. I think anyone who enjoys listening to incredibly smart people make breakthrough technologies would enjoy working there. I think people that I know have gone on from CSIRO are world leaders now and you know, again, incredible. I admire all my workmates. That's a cool thing. Oh, totally, yeah. Yeah, not many workplaces I've worked where I've said that, but I do at CSIRO. I love it, yeah.
0:25:30 - (Nicole)
Erin, you're, if you're wanting to be a paediatrician, are going to need to do a fair amount of study. How long do paediatricians go to university for?
0:25:41 - (Erin)
I think, oh, 14 years, apparently
(Nicole) your whole life at that university.
(Erin)Yeah, oh my God, that's a way of looking at it. That's going to be fun.
(Nicole) I'm glad you like learning.
(Erin) Yeah, I feel like that will get me a lot of places, my curiosity.
0:26:00 - (Nicole)
You probably will need to get a job in between, though, probably yeah. What do you think your first job is going to be?
0:26:08 - (Erin)
There is a really good bookshop just down the road from where I live and I've been going to it since I was absolutely tiny and I would love to work there. Yeah, All the people are so nice. I know the staff by name.
0:26:24 - (Nicole)
It is an award-winning, nationally recognised bookshop. So yeah, so yeah, Avid Reader would be a great place to get a job Plus I reckon you get a discount on books, I know. So reading is obviously another hobby of yours,
0:26:41 - (Lucy) yeah, she's the world's biggest reader.
Ever since it's very little, you just find her reading all day, yeah.
0:26:45 - (Nicole)
Avid Reader would be a really fun first job. Yeah, it would be For sure. Is there anything that you're worried about when you leave school and go out into the world? Erin,
0:26:55 - (Erin)
I'm worried that I won't get a fun job, one that I don't at least enjoy to an extent. Yeah, that would just crush me.
0:27:03 - (Nicole)
The Edgell Factory does not have Erin in their sights, then
(Erin)Nope, no way,
(Nicole) Lucy. If you weren't doing this job, what else do you think you'd like to do?
0:27:14 - (Lucy)
I don't know. I do everyt now and again, you know, think if I gave it all up, what business would I start? So I've thought about a few things and you have to do that graph of you know what I'd like to do, what would make money, what is good for the world, what you know. Find a happy place in the middle. And yeah, I think you know I have a whole lot of crazy ideas that probably I shouldn't say out loud. No, keep them to yourself. I think at this stage I'm really happy to explore the opportunities that we've got in innovation economics at CSIRO.
But after that's over, starting up little enterprises and I guess because I'd be in semi retirement by then too it may not have to make a lot of money, it might just be completely joyous
(Nicole) For people starting out, people who are choosing subjects, people who are maybe leaving uni, even people who are in the middle of one of those moments in their careers where they're like I think I want to do something else. What advice would you give to people in those kind of circumstances?
0:28:14 - (Lucy)
Have faith in your ability to learn, like that's always been a fallback for me. You can always retrain and learn a new thing and we should be doing that more often. I think these days we have to learn new skills, make yourself useful, and I think you know there are some transferable skills. Increasingly, I think that's going to be the softer skills, like communication and emotional intelligence and maturity. And I think the other thing is I love women's sport because what I can see in women's sport is people learning how to lose well and people learning how to win well, and that emotional intelligence is going to be increasingly important throughout life.
So don't have tantrums when you lose, like take it as a learning experience, like what did I do wrong here, what could I have done better, all of those sorts of things. But also take responsibility for your life. So if you're not happy, that's your issue that you have to try and work out. That's a problem for you to solve and take it on and try and sort of solve it in ways which it's always a risk because you don't know where you're going will make you happier or sadder. But I think not blaming people around you for your circumstances is a big lesson to learn, but the sooner you learn it, the better your life is going to be.
0:29:31 - (Nicole)
Yeah.
0:29:32 - (Lucy)
Yeah, I guess your career you're going to do things which you absolutely love. You're going to do things which you know are suboptimal, absolutely suck, but you have faith in yourself and your ability to learn. I think that's my biggest, because I feel like at this point in history, it's so hard to advise people starting out, because the world ahead is not the world we grew up in. Yeah, but the ability to learn, I think it's probably the best lesson.
0:29:59 - (Nicole)
Yeah, I love that. Erin, any advice that you have for people who are in the middle of working out what they want to do,
0:30:09 - (Erin)
just do what makes you happy. That's so cliche, I'm sorry. Just make sure that you actually do like what you do and even if you have the best career possible in your mind but the skills that you need for it are not what you enjoy doing, then you know, maybe it's not the career for you, maybe you can do another branch of it or you can do something similar to it. But you know, just don't try and force yourself to like things. Do what actually does bring you joy. And yeah,
(Nicole) that is brilliant advice.
0:30:43 - (Lucy)
Thank you. Do more things you enjoy every day. Yeah, I think, a great motto, because that alleviates stress too, doesn't it?
0:30:50 - (Nicole)
Yeah for sure, having more fun is a good thing. I think Joy is definitely underrated. Yeah, thank you both so much for coming to chat. I love that you both have these curious brains. Thank you, Erin.
(Erin) Thank you,
(Nicole) thanks, Lucy.
(Lucy) Thanks, Nicole, bye, see you. Bye,
(Nicole)Coming up next week. We've got our first Bring your Big Kid to Work episode and we'll meet Matt and his grown-up daughter, Jessi
0:31:16 - (Matt)
Hi Nicole. It's Matt Burnett here on, the Mayor of the Gladstone region in central Queensland, and it's my daughter, Jessi.
0:31:22 - (Nicole)
Jessi, your dad's job is the mayor of Gladstone a whole town. What does that involve?
0:31:27 - (Jessi)
It's a massive role. Pretty much everything in the Gladstone region has to do with the mayor.
0:31:33 - (Nicole)
You don't want to miss this one. Talk to you then.
Bring your Kid to Work is a Lioness Media production. This episode was produced and edited by me, Nicole Lessio. Our music is composed by Rakkuo, with graphics and design from Anastasia Makhuka. Subscribe to Bring your Kid to Work, wherever you're listening right now to hear all our episodes, and you can also share with your friends. We hope they enjoy listening too. You can follow us on Instagram at BringYourKidToWork, and on Facebook at BringYourKidToWork, the podcast, and you can follow me on TikTok, Nicole Lessio. Visit www.BringYourKidToWork.com to see bonus content, transcripts from our episodes and to sign up to our newsletter for the latest updates. Thanks for listening.
