#201 Carol Schwartz: Pioneering Philanthropy, Driving Boardroom Change, Founding The Women's Leadership Institute & Raising 4 Kids with Purpose

What if we could reimagine the traditional notion of a high flyer? Hey friends, welcome back or welcome to the High Flyer's podcast where we do reimagine a high flyer showcase the brightest and most relatable role models and companies and their journey from Sunrise to today. As one of the premier products in our curiosity center, the lineup providing on-demand intelligence to help you be once and better every single day. Homey host, Viditagol, and let's have some fun. Thanks to you, this podcast continues to rank in the Global Top 10 podcast by both Spotify and Apple Podcasts for the past two years running. And we hope you're enjoying our catalog of episodes since we launched in 2020 featuring relatable role models from around the world, often appearing in their first ever in-depth public conversation. Our listeners have called this podcast as a meticulously researched audio biography unveiling the extraordinary lives and decisions of the most remarkable individuals and companies from around the world. The conversation you're about to hear is a replay of episode 142 that originally released in September 2023, given so many of you loved that episode back then, where we're releasing it today since it's a classic. Today, I'm speaking with Carol Schwarz, one of the Australia's most dynamic business and community leaders of the Davies career across property, the arts, finance and investment. Some of the roles include being the board member of the Reserve Bank and Trawala Group, plus sharing the Climate Council and the women's leadership in shoot. Lambert Carol Sunrise in Melbourne, Australia, in which she describes a large present in loving family with deep entrepreneurial roots and immigrating from Europe. She talked about the three siblings and the influences of her parents who were married for over 70 years. Top of two cover include, "How subjects should be taught in high school to set up both boys and girls for success. A desire to be an international lawyer with a focus solely on her career and how that thinking evolved when she met her husband, Helen, in law school. Key theme you'll notice through this conversation is Carol's deep passion for empowering women in a range of industries and I ask Carol about how she became the first female president of the property council being influenced by the feminists of the 70s, changing the time and venue of board meetings and learning the importance of patience when her kids were born. A lot of the stories Carol shares including why she created the women's leadership in shoot and how it provided a platform for her to speak up and get people to listen, activism and Twitter, posting pictures, board men, boardrooms, and tagging journalists to drive action. And how Carol and her husband, Alan, created the framework for her family office and foundation Trawala to focus on art, ideas, innovation and scholarship. And don't miss Carol's tactical reflections on how to balance time and being persuasive whilst building meaningful relationships. It's now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy. Carol Schwarz, welcome to the show. Good morning, Vity. Lovely to chat to you. I'm excited to do this. We've had a number of mutual friends on the show. This should be really fun. Why don't we stop some fun facts to set the scene where we are born and where do you live now? I was born in Melbourne and I live in Melbourne and I'm a very proud Melbourneian. Yes. And from a work perspective, what was your first job and what do you do now? If an article clerkship counts as a first job, then that was my first job because I finished my law degree and I did my articles. And interestingly enough, that was my first job where I had an employer and I did not have a sort of a formal employer after that for many years because I was self-employed. And as you know, Carol, the purpose of this show is to reimagine a high-flyer. Is there a high-flyer? You know who you feel hasn't got the recognition that is of? You know, Vity, you mentioned this to me before and when I was thinking about that, I was actually thinking about the incredible women that I know who haven't got the recognition that they deserve. And you know what? They are so numerous. I couldn't even start naming the war. But I think we all need to think about the women that we know who have been under-acknowledged or not acknowledged at all. Absolutely. I want to wind back the clock, Carol, to your son raised, to your childhood and he said growing up in Melbourne, what was the influence of family and the environment? I guess I've always had a large, very warm, loving, very present family around me. I grew up with three siblings, two sisters and a brother, parents who were married for over 70 years, very loving parents, hardworking, loving. And I was very lucky as a, as I guess as a Jewish child, to have both sets of grandparents because both my steps of grandparents came from Europe. And we know the history of the Holocaust and the persecution of Jewish families throughout Russia and Europe. But both my sets of grandparents were able to come to Australia. And so unlike a lot of my friends, I actually grew up with both sets of my grandparents, which was fantastic. And talk about that entrepreneurial nature and the family. I mean, there's lots of articles online that the family came with nothing and then built it from the ground up. And so that success in hard work. What was that like growing up? Were you given a lot of freedom and a lot of autonomy to try things and experiment? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I guess that, you know, when you grow up in a family, you take those sorts of things for granted, right? Because that's the family context. But yeah, we were given, I mean, I wouldn't say an enormous amount of freedom, but I would say that my parents were probably quite contemporary in the way that we were brought up. And it's certainly as girls, we didn't experience any sort of stereotyping into what we could or couldn't do. I didn't feel that anyway. You know, children within a family have completely different experiences. So my siblings might say something completely different to me, but that was my experience. But I never felt that I was being pushed into certain areas because I was a girl and nor did I feel that I wasn't capable of achieving anything either in the sporting field or academically because I was a girl. That was never was never ever restrictive in any way. Did you have any heroes growing up? Would any people you looked up to in the family unit or outside? I think that, you know, firstly as a child, I think that you always think that your parents are super people, right? I used to think that my mother was the most beautiful and my father was the strongest and the smartest and that's the way it was. But you know, I do have to say one of my grandmother's, my mother's mother, was a real personality and she, in fact, was a great female entrepreneur. She, in fact, was the person who started the business of my father eventually took over and she was the one who had that very entrepreneurial get up and go spirit that I think that her granddaughters all inherited. And what was high school, Carol? Were you a naughty child or were you a studious child? Were you the teacher's pet? Definitely not teacher's pet. And not particularly studious, but quite, you know, bright enough to get by with a modicum of work, like I was not a great student, except in subjects that I really loved. So, for example, I was really good in French and I did very well in French and I loved English literature and I did very well in English literature. So the subjects where I think I had a natural predisposition or talent, if you like, were obviously the subjects that I did well in and the subjects that I, you know, I was not naturally attracted to, I didn't do so well. But having said that, you did. It's really interesting to watch how, you know, girls are told that they're better at the humanity subjects and not as strong in the science and math subjects. I think that's rubbish. I actually think that girls are just as strong in science and maths, but I think that potentially the way they are taught is in a biased way that suits boys better than it does girls. And interestingly enough, you don't find in single sex schools the same sorts of issues that you do in co-educational schools with science and maths subjects. And also, when I went back to university to do an MBA, I mean, one of the subjects that I had to do, which was compulsory, was quantitative analysis, which is basically solving problems for maths, right? And I remember saying to Alan, oh, I'm really anxious about this. And he said, well, I'll just help you with it as much as I can. And he was a fantastic tutor. He actually communicated the mathematics, if you like, in a way that really suited me. And I ended up with a high distinction for that subject. So, yeah, so I think it's really, we have to really think about the way subjects are being taught and making sure that they are being communicated to students in ways that suits how they like to learn. Well, it's so interesting and it's so interesting how that's evolved. thing as well, but technology and I mean schools that I have iPads and things which I kind of imagine what kind of things that creates having technology everywhere. But if we go back to your story Carol, I love asking when you were 18 and you've got some understanding of the world, what was fulfillment or what was success at that age, particularly because as you said, your parents dream big and they're damn really big. And did you have that dreaminess in you? Yeah, you know, at 18 I still fantasized about being a major global international lawyer jetting around the world in my very smart, amani suits and solving the world's problems, never getting married and not having children because that didn't fit into my life. And also at that time I was a beneficiary of the feminists of the 70s. And I felt, you know, really the world is my oyster and that's the way I've been brought up as a girl that I could achieve anything that I wanted to. And instead I got married when I was doing fourth year law. I was still married to the same guy, 46 years later. And then I had four children, beautiful children. And I couldn't imagine a better life. But at 18 that's not the way I imagined my life panning out. That's fascinating. Alan must have had a real charm to him to make you change and fall for him, right? Oh, he did. He did. In fact, I'll tell you the first time that I ever saw him we were at a house party. I don't know whether they still do house parties, but you know, it was a shared house. And I don't know whether he was stoned or drunk or what, but he, you know, he had this huge afro and he was wearing very groovy jeans and a shirt and he was dancing in a really groovy way and I thought, oh, that guy looks really interesting. Yeah. I was very lucky. Yeah. Amazing, amazing. And talk about, so I understand you studied arts and law at Monash. Is that right? Yes, that's right. And then what was the step after that? Like, when I think back to my career, I was, I know much younger to you, but I was very confused. I didn't know what I wanted to do in my life. And I think a lot of us weren't that way. And that's the purpose of this show. I think it's to show that even people like you, often that part is not. Just up and to the right. There's a lot of exploration. How did you start? Because again, with the family, you probably had some options there. You probably could have just got a job as a graduate of law firm. Where did you start off to university? Because I was already married. I did do my articles because that was part of the deal, right? Like you studied law, you have to qualify it. I felt anyway, an obligation to qualify as a lawyer. And Alan was a young lawyer as well. He was actually at Monash a few years ahead of me. And so I was already married. So we decided, neither of us had taken a year off during our studies. So we said, right, as soon as I finished my articles, we were taking a year off and we traveled for a year. And we ended up in New York for about six months. And I was doing, at the time, I loved dance classes. So I was doing dance classes all day. Alan was often libraries researching various different sorts of things. He'd already started, by the way, a very entrepreneurial business running seminars for lawyers. Because what happened was, while he was doing his articles, a new family law rack came out. And he was asked as a, the article Clark to, to do a divorce under this new family law rack. He had no idea what to do. So he started bringing other lawyers and judges and he realized that nobody actually had any idea what to do. So he called somebody who was in charge of writing the new act and one of the family, family law judges. And he said, would you do a seminar for lawyers on the new family law rack? And that was the start of his business. So he was also incredibly entrepreneurial. And he was running this Australian seminar services business. I used to help him with licking envelopes and sending out all the invitations to come along to the seminars. In fact, I remember sitting around my parents dining room table doing that and getting my parents to help as well. And but we decided we needed to take it a year off. He had a partner in that business who would run the business for him. And while we were away, I came across aerobic studios and there weren't any in Melbourne at that time. This was an 18-ation. I said to Alan, I think I'm going to open an aerobics and dance studio when we go back to Melbourne. And I got very excited about that. So we were traveling. We ended up six months in New York. We was traveling through Europe for six months. And then on the way back, we actually came back through LA. And I went for a month every day to Jane Fondre's workout and learned all the routines, how she was setting up, all about sweatpants and the leg warmers and the headbands and how she had dancers as teachers. And they actually produced tapes, audio tapes. So I brought back a whole lot of audio tapes. And that was what I wanted to do. So I found an old building in Little Trobe Street and worked for about nine months to convert it into three dance studios, which I envisaged not only running aerobics classes, but also rating them out to dance teachers, because they weren't dance studios in Melbourne at that time that were available to dance teachers. So that's what I did. And so that's why I was self-employed and didn't have to apply for another job. Sometimes I think that I was at that stage of my life pretty unemployable anyway. Never thought about if you stayed in that law path, what life would have been like today? Oh, do you know, actually it's interesting. Sometimes I do think back on that. Firstly law is a fantastic humanities degree to study. I don't know what you studied, but law is fantastic. I mean, I learned all about intellectual property, trademarks, property law, administrative law, you know, concepts of natural justice and ultravirus. I mean, things that one can use in one's everyday life when you read about things. And my first couple of years of studying law, I was a bit of a Slack student, but as I got more into it, I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed it. And I think that I would not have been a good solicitor, but I think that I could have been a pretty good barrister. And barristers are like self-employed people anyway, right? And they do interesting work and it's intellectually very challenging. And they also have to deal with people, obviously. So if I ever do fantasise about how a life in law could have looked for me, it's usually around what I've been a barrister. And if my research serves me correctly after the aerobics in dance classes, you started, you got into property, is that right? You were the first female president of the property council of Victoria? Yes, yes. That actually came from my involvement in my family business because when I finished my MBA, I had actually just had my third child and my father had separated from my uncle in their business. And my father called me up and said, "I'd love you to come and work in the property side of the business." Because I'd always had a love of property, always. Like actually while I was pregnant, I had been doing a small property development with a girlfriend of mine who was an interior designer. We developed townhouses in various suburbs and sold them. And I loved doing that. And my father's business was retail and property and my older sister was actually working in the, had just started working in the retail business at that time. And I loved the property side. It was actually retail property shopping centres. So I said, "Yes, let's give it a go." And I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. And also, you know, working in a family business gives you an enormous amount of flexibility, particularly if you have siblings who are working in the business at the same time who are having families at the same time. You know, there's a deep understanding of the requirement for flexibility. So we're all very, you know, there was a lot of mutual respect around what we all needed at that time. And did you say earlier you had a few kids at by this stage? So you had a couple of years? Yeah, I had my third child. And then I went on to have my beautiful, really, my fourth child. That's incredible. I've got such an appreciation for, unfortunately, just a biological sense of a body. The females have to do that and work and live a life. And we'll get to your work now. But could I still do you for doing that? I mean, I don't have kids yet. I can barely keep my life together. And you have three kids and you're doing this work and the family business. So, could I still do you? Thank you. You know, it's sort of interesting that you say that because, as I said, I was a beneficiary of the feminists of the '70s. But it also, I think, thinking back, put a lot of pressure on women about doing it all. I mean, one of the big motivations for me after selling my aerobics in Dan Strydio, because I could not manage that having a baby. It just was impossible because it wasn't a business that was doing well enough for me to put in a manager. So I had to be there all the time. And you know, that meant I had to be there at six o'clock in the morning and then close for a few hours during the day and then be back there from six o'clock in the evening till about nine o'clock at night. And when you've got a little bit of pressure on women, you can see that there's a lot of pressure baby, that just doesn't work. And when I decided to sell that business, one of the big motivations, and I'll be completely upfront with you about this, about going back to university to do an MBA was because I didn't want people, people when they asked me what I was doing, I didn't want to have to say, oh, you know, I've got a little baby or looking after a child at the moment, which is bloody hard work, let me tell you. And I didn't want to have to just say, oh, I'm just looking after children. So I would say, I'm doing an MBA. Fantastic. And I love that self belief that you had to just go out there and do it. And obviously I'm the support of Alan and your family. Back to the episode in a moment. Let's talk about some of the most intimidating acronyms in business. ISO 27001, SOC 2, Essential 8. They sound like an alphabet soup. Don't they? Trust me, I've been there. Vanta is like your business's compliance superpower. They automate the messy, mind numbling parts of security monitoring, compliance tracking and audit preparation. All of you as listeners of this podcast, get a special offer. All you have to do is go to vanta.com/high. That's vant.com/high. H-I-G-H. Or reach out to me via my email in the show notes. And that link vanta.com/high is also in the show notes. Now back to the episode. I don't want to ask about when was the first time you felt you should stand up for something. I believe at the property council, did you change some of the lunch meetings from mail-only venues to like new job venues? Was that the first piece of work in the mid-90s where you felt you could stand up for your beliefs? Is that right? Absolutely. I mean, I guess because it wasn't until probably I started working more in a corporate environment that I started realising that all the fabulous women that I had been through university with that I had been working with through my 20s, they sort of seemed to disappear from early 30s onwards and you'd go into meetings particularly in the property industry in those days, although it has changed quite a lot now. And you would be the only woman in the room. And that was accepted as an arm. And I must say that I did have there was a very enlightened gentleman who was the chairman of the property council of Victoria at that time in the 90s. And he said to me, I really want you to take over as the chair. And I said to him, I just had my fourth child. And he said, "Doesn't matter, you can do it." And what I did was I did change around things. So I said, for example, I can't do breakfasts and cocktails. And in those days you had two vice presidents. So I guess I sort of democratised activity around the board. And my fellow board members took on a lot more responsibility, which I think is not a bad thing anyway, right? Everything doesn't have to rest with the president. And I also made sure that I had more women around the board table at that time, because they did tend to be very male and corporate dominated. So I brought on a couple of women who were actually running very interesting entrepreneurial property businesses, smaller scale, but very bright women. And I think that they made a great contribution around the table. Fantastic. And that was I, as you me first board role, like you've got many more roles now, but was that your first day to it board roles? Do you know I had actually my very first board role was actually the comedy festival. Right. They've got a board. They did have a board in those days. It was a great board. And I'll tell you who was the chairman of that board. It was Tony Staley, who unfortunately recently passed away. But because it was funded by government, they had somebody of the stature of Tony Staley as the chairman. But I'll tell you something, there were very funny people around the table. You know, they used to have, what was it called? It was a, it was like a very early comedy, comedy festival clubs. In, there was one that one in mystery was called the Flying Trapeze or something like that, which was run by John Pinder and Wendy Harmer was around the table. Rod Quantock was around the table. I mean, they had, they had actual comedians sitting around the table, Roger Evans, who ran these venues as well. And Tony, to his credit ran those meetings extremely well. I learned a lot from him about chairing meetings. And that was my first board. And then I went on onto the board of the property council, which was in those days called Boemer. And then I became the chair. So it was my, definitely my first chairing role. Yeah. The part of fine fascinating here, Carol is you've already experienced so many different roles. And he talked about New York and becoming a mum. Was this a sort of line in the sand moment for you? Where you went, okay, I've got some understanding of the world now. I've seen the family business, I've done property, I've worked with Alan. He's doing law of you've been in New York. You've got the kids. How did you decide how to craft your life post this? Because I feel like that's, I get the sense this was a turning point for you where you went, okay, how do I consciously create the life I want? Are you kidding? You know, life happens. Life happens. Okay, so you never sat down with Alan and you went, okay, let's do these things for the next 20 years. Was there ever a strategic plan? Or was it always just take it as a comes? Yeah, do you know what? I think it has to be, I mean, you obviously set your life in a particular direction. But it was sort of like with the property council. The timing is never perfect. And it's not necessarily, you know, a straight continuum. I think he's got to be able to, you know, swing with the wind a little bit. And, you know, as opportunity, particularly for women, as opportunities come up, take them because there's never going to be the right time. You know, it's never going to be the perfect time. There's always going to be an excuse, you know, oh, no, this child is just about to go into senior school or this child is doing for the CE or I've just gone on to the school board or whatever. There's always going to be a reason why you don't take on a new challenge or a new opportunity. And my advice is, and I have to say, I'm one was always incredibly supportive of the thesis, you know, he got to take deep breath and take the opportunity that presents itself. I want to go to some of the magic moments, Carolyn. And I feel one might have been creating the Trawala framework with your husband, Alan, which I believe was focused on art ideas, innovation and scholarship. Can you talk about how you reach those four pillars and how's that evolved since? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because the Trawala foundation, I remember, you know, Alan's Alan and I were brought up in very generous philanthropic environments. And so it had always been part of our DNA to give back to the community in some way, to observe where there were gaps and try and fill them. I was brought up in a family where we were surrounded by art and art was incredibly, well, just was such an integral part of my life. And aesthetic, my mother had the most incredible aesthetic you could ever imagine. And, you know, she saw beauty everywhere and she knew how to create beauty within an environment. She was an amazing woman. And so when Alan and I started trying to put a structure around our community involvement, philanthropy, whatever you want to call those, art had to play a role. And ideas, you know, if you think about the ideas that are out there, that are bubbling away, that are fermenting that need support, we didn't want to be pigeonholed into medical research, you know, poverty, family violence. We wanted to be able to give to all the great ideas that exist. And that's why we created, you know, the category of ideas because it doesn't limit us in any way to what we can be looking at. Scholarship is, scholarship can be transformational. You know, scholarships in people's lives can be transformational. And that's one of the, one of the reasons that, you know, pathways to politics has been such a success because what it really is at its fundamental level is it's an enabler for poor. It's a transformational experience that people can take into other parts of their lives. And, you know, it's something that we've been very excited about. And innovation, of course, I mean, you know, who doesn't want to be involved with innovation, you know, and support innovation. So, I mean, that's, again, you know, I think that is the foundation of my investing in women who are looking at new ways of funding investments and setting up VC funds. It's all very innovative. Absolutely. And you're playing a huge role. And I think there's a lot of gratitude in the community for the work you're doing. I'm also curious about, I understand the creation of the woman's leadership institute that you're the chair of gave you the platform. And you've spoken about previously how that allowed you to get into rooms where people like she sat down and listened. Can you talk about that in the early days? Was there a behavioral change element that you had to bring in to society? Yeah. You know, it's really interesting for you. I mean, I had been talking about, you know, gender equality and the need for women to share power and decision-making with men for a long time. And then I became involved with a group of amazing women philanthropists out of the US who called themselves women moving millions. And these were women who had funds available to them that either, you know, created businesses that were very successful or they had inherited money. And they realised, they had this realisation that actually they had a lot of power through their philanthropic giving. And each of them spoke about how as individuals without that sort of platform around them, they were doing okay, but they didn't have the momentum that they would have liked. And I learned from them that if you do set up a structure as a platform for your ideas, it actually, it's almost, it creates an institution around the ideas that you're trying to impart. And that's, I came back from one of the meetings with them and I set up the Women's Leadership Institute Australia. Now, the interesting thing about that is that, and that I think were about 10 or 12 years old now, the interesting thing about it is that I got that name straight away. I registered that name. Now, who would have thought that you would have got the name Women's Leadership Institute Australia only 10, 12 years ago, right? But I registered it, I got it. And that then became the platform for launching things like Women for Media, which was about getting more voices in the media. You know, I used to be an activist on Twitter around, you know, they're not being enough women's voices in the media. I used to, what I used to do is take photographs out of the various newspapers and photographs of all men and post them on Twitter and just have the hashtag, where are the women? And I would tag the journalist and I knew that I was getting traction when one day a journalist colleague called me up and said, you know, our editor said in this morning's meeting, if I see one more effing tweets from Carol Swartz, heads are going to roll and I knew that I was finally getting somewhere. But you have to be active like that. And the Women's Leadership Institute actually gave me that platform. So I had Women for Media, I had one of the first things I did was with a very great friend and colleague, Dennis Moriati from our community. We launched a booklet on how to nominate women for Australian honours because in those days, and we've just got to parity. And, you know, so it was those sorts of initiatives. We now have, we're now backing and supporting these brilliant women who are doing incredible work in the gender equality space and we're calling them our Women's Leadership Institute Fellows. And they're a diverse group of women who are doing amazing work and then coming together to see how they can collaborate together. So, you know, we're looking for new opportunities like that all the time about how the Women's Leadership Institute can be the platform for new initiatives. I mean, our pathways to politics for women also comes through the Women's Leadership Institute. But we're on the lookout for those opportunities all the time and it does create that framework or platform for opportunities. I think something that all of us struggle with, but particularly females and I'd say even people of colour and immigrants is presenting in their way around some of these narratives that gets people engaged and not switch off feel they're part of the broader mission. And a lot of people said, you've been very good at this and you've spoken earlier about how you've I'm curious how have you learned how to go into a room and influence? Or if it's a coffee catcher up, like what are some of the tactical elements of helping the other person understand that you're both on the same side and they're not getting defensive? That's a really interesting question. I think I'm a very curious person and I also I love people. So I take a big interest in people and I ask them a lot of questions and even when I'm finding somebody a little bit difficult, shall we say, you know, I think that I engage with them quite well in terms of asking questions, probing and then maybe saying things like, have you thought about that in this way? But you know, look, at the end of the day I'm human and my tolerance and patience only goes to a certain level and yeah. And if someone doesn't agree with me or has it completely opposite point of view, that's fine. I just don't have to engage with them. And the other one that your chief of staff Sarah mentioned that is your superpower in her words is that you're a master networker but you do it in a way where you build meaningful relationships and you mentor the next generation. Again, I'm not as busy as you are but I find my time is increasingly hard to manage and I have to say no and sometimes I know people who want my time. How do you manage that where you can't say yes to everything and you can't be everywhere but sometimes you want to help someone be like, ah, give me two months and let's connect again. How do you balance that internally for yourself? Yeah, isn't Zoom fantastic. I mean, seriously, that has been a really good help. I mean, you know, I work very closely with Lara and Lara's brilliant. She looks after me really well so she makes sure that I'm not, you know, in back-to-back meetings from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day which I really appreciate but she also knows that it's very important to me to engage with people and to, you know, particularly I get a lot of young women reaching out to me. So, you know, we work out together how that's going to work. So, for example, you know, I'll go for a walk with someone around the botanical gardens and that means that I'm doing my exercise as well as having a chat to someone or I'll meet somebody for breakfast after walking my grandchildren to school. So that also means I have to eat breakfast, right? So I meet someone for breakfast and I've already walked my grandchildren to school. So, you know, it's things like that, you know, you, I guess one of the advantages to getting older is that you do know your limitations but you also know how to optimise your time. You know, every founder starts with a vision but then reality kicks in. Suddenly managing invest updates, hiring, product road maps and you're trying to keep everything in sync. Notion is the ultimate startup operating system and provides one place for teams to get everything done seamlessly listeners of the High Flies podcast get three months free of Notion Plus with unlimited AI to help speed up your work. That's over three thousand dollars in savings. So if you're looking to move faster and keep your team aligned, Notion is the place to build. Go to ntn.so/highflies. That is ntn.so/high-flies. F-L-Y-E-R and then select Curiosity Center/the High Flies podcast in the referral partner question and then user code, High Flies, One Word, High Flies for three months of Notion Plus or free. Again, that is ntn.so/highflies. Back to the episode now. We're coming to a close soon, Carole Lwona, move to a rapid-fire final sprint. Is there one non-financial investment you've made in your life that you consider the best? Oh yeah, Pathways to Politics for Women. Definitely, absolutely. It's a brilliant investment. I'm just so thrilled with the way that program is working out and the partnership with the universities. I couldn't imagine anything better. One thing you'd like to learn in the next six months? I'd love my friends to be better. I am doing French lessons on Monday morning from 9 to 10. I I have a brilliant French teacher who speaks to me only in French. And when I've finished my one hour with my brain is fine. One thing your four kids have taught you? Oh, one thing, a multitude of things. I mean, they are, you know, having children, I think is your best, your best share and your best way of personal development. But, you know, I guess the thing that when I think back about why I didn't want children and what surprised me about myself when I did have children was actually patients, patients. I never thought that I had patients. I was always an incredibly patient person. And that's why I thought I could never have children. But I'll tell you something, you learned such patients with children because you just adore them. Is there one person or quote that inspires you today? You know, it's not really, but you know what? I mean, as an experience that I've had of something that does really help me in life, you know what that is? Doing a yoga nidra. If you haven't tried a yoga nidra, I'm not. Right. They're absolutely brilliant when I'm feeling exhausted on my brains too full. I have an app with a yoga nidra on it, which is like a sort of a deep meditation. And I can highly recommend that to everybody. Amazing. I will make a note. Yoga, Hidra. Is that right? Nidra, Nidra, yoga nidra. Yeah, I will make a note of that. For me, the yoga is the gym I find switching off and getting away from the screen is really good. But meditations, actually, that's one that I think requires a lot of patients. Do you point where I always had a view in meditation that, oh, no, I'm better than this. I would only to meditate and mom would always tell me and meditation has been a game changer. So I think just slowing down and stopping for those five, ten minutes in every couple of days is magical. Exactly. Try the yoga nidra. There's a great app for a several great. Yeah, you'll enjoy that. That brings us to the finish line, Carol Schwartz. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. We did. And please, thank you for being so patient with all the technical questions that we have. There you have it. That's my conversation with Carol Schwartz. This was a very special episode given the impact Carol has had and continues to in various parts of our society. I really enjoyed Carol's framing of the institution of ideas and the balance between tackling life as it comes and setting goals. And it relaxed demeanor throughout this conversation. Made her a really easy guest to recall this episode with. So I hope you enjoy this episode 142. And I'd love to hear from you. You can reach out by my email in the show notes. If you want to recommend future guests or if you want to become a sponsor, enjoy now suite of brands such as KPMG, Google, Vanta, remote.com, Notion in many more. Until next time, keep exploring your curiosity.