The HR Community Podcast
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Civitas Talent is excited to bring you a series of podcasts dedicated to the HR community. This is a space where you can learn best-practice solutions from HR community leaders, with host Shane O'Neill.
Whether you’re a CEO, HR executive or operating across the wider HR sector - this podcast is for you!
The HR Community Podcast
Mental Health in the C-Suite: An Honest Reflection with Paddy Jordan, Vice President HR, APAC at Suntory Global Spirits
When Paddy Jordan left Ireland at 23 to backpack around the world, he never imagined his journey would lead to becoming Vice President of HR Asia Pacific for a global spirits company. In this captivating conversation with Shane O'Neill, Paddy reveals how an unexpected pivot from corporate banking to compensation and benefits launched his HR career – a field he initially resisted entering.
"I'd rather work for the best boss in the worst job than work in the best job with the worst boss," Paddy shares, explaining how his pursuit of great leadership rather than specific roles has guided his career across Australia, Japan, and now Singapore. This philosophy shapes his approach to HR: questioning whether traditional frameworks remain fit for purpose in today's agile workplace.
The emotional heart of this episode comes as Paddy candidly discusses being diagnosed with depression while working in Japan during the pandemic, separated from his husband for nearly two years due to border closures. His powerful insight that acknowledging mental health struggles doesn't diminish professional capability offers a refreshing perspective on leadership authenticity.
For HR professionals navigating their own global aspirations or career transitions, Paddy's journey embodies his guiding principle: "We set the opportunity and fate will follow." His story demonstrates how embracing uncertainty, prioritizing relationships, and maintaining core values can lead to unexpected but fulfilling career paths in international HR leadership.
What unexpected opportunity might reshape your professional journey? Connect with Paddy on LinkedIn to continue this important conversation about leadership, mental health, and creating HR practices that truly serve today's evolving workplace.
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Welcome to the HR Community Podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill, founder of Sila Tass Talent, the HR and HSE recruitment community. Each episode, we will host HR leaders and discuss their journey and discover best practice HR solutions across the HR industry. Whether you're a CEO, hr executive or operating across the wider HR space, this podcast is for you. Please like and subscribe, and don't forget to comment and share your views. Enjoy the episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the HR Community Podcast. Today I'm joined with Paddy Jordan. Paddy is the Vice President for HR Asia Pacific for Centauri Global Spirits. Centauri Global Spirits is part of the Centauri Global Group, so welcome, paddy. Thanks, mate.
Speaker 2:How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm very good. I'm very good Fellow Irishmen. So for those that are listening, if we get into our Irish chat, there may be subtitles provided if needed, but I think we should be OK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. I think we have both have enough experience, Shane, to learn to slow down. I think that's part of our onboarding of moving to Australia, but we both did as.
Speaker 1:Hodra said Exactly right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Paddy. Paddy and I have been speaking over the last couple of months about this. I'm very excited to finally sit down and record it. But for those of you who are listening, I'm going to hand the mic back over to Paddy to maybe tell us a little bit more about who you were, tell us a little bit more about who you are, tell us a bit more about your role, your current organization, and let's go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, mate. Yeah, mate, thanks for having me. I think, like many things that I learn in I'm learning about life, especially professional, is you can never predict anything. So you know, we just connected and here I am doing a podcast, something I probably never thought I'd do or ever do. So thanks for having me. So a bit of background.
Speaker 2:I am, like yourself, a fellow Irishman who, at the age of 23, decided I needed something a bit more shinier and brighter, and I went backpacking around the world and part of that was stopping in Australia and I think, for everyone listening on this call, I believe most people will be Australians. I think you'll understand why I stayed. So that's kind of how I started moving around and, as I always say to people, I'm a proud Irishman who calls Australia home. So, even though I'm currently living in Singapore, I spent 20 years in Australia. I married an Australian. I still have my place in Australia and I think a lot of what for me was my time in Australia married in Australia and I still have my place in Australia, and I think a lot of what formed me was my time in Australia, both professionally and personally, because I have friends that I grew up with and I have friends I met in Australia. All are as equally important, but certainly those in Australia know me a lot better as the Paddy that you get to meet today. My career I'm living in Singapore now, and even between Australia and Singapore, I did a five-year stint in Tokyo and how I did all this and ended up in all this is it's really linked to my career, and when I first moved to Australia I spent time in Duke sales roles, so my background is not HR.
Speaker 2:My first job outside of university when I finished in Ireland was in corporate banking. So I was a credit analyst in banking many, many, many, many, many, many, many years ago in Ireland and then I came to Australia and I got involved in customer roles and I love them. I love the interaction with customers. I love the aspect of relationship management, finding solutions. It was a great way for me to learn about how to navigate and get things done. It's takeover, influencing so the usual challenges that come between sales team and operations teams etc. And I ended up in this role. I ended up doing different types of roles, not just account management. I worked for a company called ComputerShare and with that time I also did a stint leading an operations team as well. So I got this really good grounding and understanding and I had a customer at the time called Babcock Brown so some people might remember that name and it was an investment bank which, unfortunately, was one of the victims of the global financial crisis and I really enjoyed working with them. They were a very dynamic organization and it was there that I took a chance to move out of my role with ComputerShare and I moved to them and I got involved in compensation and benefits.
Speaker 2:It was something I never really understood. It was I had to understand the concept but the complexity of what's involved, all the analysis, the understanding of you know, how do you remain competitive in a market? How do you get research and insight. So I thought it was such a fascinating job and I did that for a number of years and then they obviously unfortunately, with a global financial crisis, I lost my job. So then I moved across and I worked for National Australia Bank, maintaining the same type of work, but again it was very, very different, because I think working in an investment bank, which is probably a bit more you know the direction comes from the top. Working for a company like NAB, it was a lot more consultative, collaborative. It was such a different type of bank, being retail, institutional, business banking, so it wasn't probably as direct or strict as you might get in investment banking. So, again, I had to learn this new skill set of you know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the decisions was with me, not necessarily being told what to do, like we did in an investment bank and it was there that I had this really, really good boss. His name is Andrew Howard, listening into this or anyone knows Andrew. I just want to make a call out because it was Andrew who taught me the art of doing a really good development plan and in fact, actually I'm doing this podcast with you, mate from Taipei, and I just had a meeting with my team in Taipei, my HRBP, up here, on this exact conversation, and I'm still using the art that Andrew taught me about development Love that that's awesome. Be specific, like using the concept of the SMART acronym Specific, measurable, articulate I think it's relatable and then time-bound. And he got me really thinking around what development is and how you focus on it, and through that I got really articulate and with very, very specific actions, and one of those actions was getting access to a leadership team or to work with a team to understand the business more.
Speaker 2:That's where he turned to me one day and he said hey, would you do a six-month stint as a HR business partner? And my first reaction was absolutely not. It was heated and I think, working in the reward space, you're working with business partners all the time and you see the relationship normally comes with a bit of tension. So he kept at me for two or three weeks, think about it, think about it, and he brought it back to.
Speaker 2:This is about you learning the business and it was at a time when I think there was a few things going on in my life. I had just, you know, being Shane, you'll probably understand this, being a good Irish Catholic, I dug my head in the sand on a lot of things and one of those things was my own sexual orientation. So just coming to terms with that at the age of 30 and dealing with it, yeah, and then also, I think, you know, in the workspace, um, I was probably at an age my mother always says men say men mature at the age of 40, and I think at the age of 30, this little piece of maturity was starting to go in my head and I was kind of questioning in the workplace why do we always just do what we're told Like?
Speaker 2:sometimes the things we do aren't always right, and I think both of these things happening in my life probably maybe set up a value that I have and I still stick with it which is no one leader has the monopoly on thought, because in coming out I realized that my whole life I was being told this was wrong. I was built an expectation that no one would love me, I'd be rejected, and I held on to that and that's a very clear of how I tackle my own things and how I deal with people, and then even in workplaces, this environment of sometimes autocracy.
Speaker 2:You know we have these great words empowerment, accountability but the reality is it's a hard thing to change in an organization and I just had some work experiences, especially in the investment bank, where I really questioned why things happened and you know why didn't I speak up. So this really drove me into this piece of, I suppose, self-reflection and going in to do a business partner role was really the thing that was needed to kind of solidify and help me set up what was going on in my head. Because I think in business partnering most people I remember at the time when I did it people were like oh so you're hiring and firing and I didn't really understand what business partnering can do and also even what it does do, but also what it can do, because I think there's a lot of untapped potential in our roles and I realized you know I'm not a good follower of, I don't love processes. I respect them, I respect why we have policies, but I necessarily don't always agree and I think I've learned to form and being in a business partner has really made me question things a lot more and when you're in a business partner role you are very close to the business because you're linked to a lot of conversations. Like I say to people, I'm not gunning for my boss's job being the president of the business, whereas many people sitting around the table probably do have that in their ambitions or in their career plans. So I feel like I come with a safer pair of hands where I'm not in that competitive streak for my boss's role and I can look at things more objectively from aspects of decisions being made, how we live and drive, I suppose, to the purpose and values of an organization, but also being able to call out and recognize behaviors that are happening which for many bosses and leaders they won't see because they're not going to be told things. So you know our job is not to go and tell the boss everything that's going wrong, but I can normally see it packaged up with more facts, especially data, to try and make a better decision.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of the path that brought me here and I I, because I've changed my career a few times I always take a view that I don't always have to be in HR and I think that as I have grown. So as I moved into business partnering, I stayed in that. I moved to Coca-Cola, which was an amazing experience. I worked there for seven and a half years and it was my time in Coke that got me to Japan, and now I'm here in Singapore with the Suntory Group or Suntory Global Spirits. And one thing that I always think about is, as I think, about my own development and where I want to go next.
Speaker 2:I don't have to stay in HR, but what I've realized is, by being open-minded to it, what I'm probably chasing and what I'm passionate about is really around leadership. It's not necessarily about the role. Like I always say, I'd rather work for the best boss in the worst job than work in the best job with the worst boss. And that comes around leadership, because when you have a great boss, they can really dangle carrots in front of you, get you thinking, make you feel more comfortable, more empowered. Empowered let you be more accountable. And that's kind of why I'm doing the roles I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's in HR, but I'm loving the aspect of leadership, of the impacts that I can have. You know, I have a through coaching. I have a purpose and that is that I'm a leader who wants to drive social change. I want to transform situations which drive greater outcomes for the majority and I want to be the change that others can't envision. So those three points really kind of drive me and focus me on what I want to do and how I do it and how I can show up in my job. So I know that's a very big introduction.
Speaker 2:That's kind of not in circles, but I hope for listeners. It might give you a bit of insight to who I am and how I think.
Speaker 1:No, that's a great journey, great story. I love it. I love it. You've got the Irish air to storytelling. I think that that that was great, and you know I took a lot from that as well.
Speaker 1:I know we touched on some of these things previously, paddy, but you know I often find that there's two different types of people. There's people that didn't really have that strong leader in their corner and then you know they'll swear blind that they'll never be in that situation again. So they go off and they try and be a better leader themselves. And it does happen. Sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 1:You had a taste for good leadership at such an earlier stage of your career, so you know what I'm hearing is, you had a taste for it and you knew what good, what great, meant. So when you're in these roles and when you're in these organizations, when you see there's a gap, you've sort of proactively gone hey, I can fix this, or I can enable it, or I can try and fix it, or try and help at least. And then that's probably been a huge part of how your role is formed and your motivation with your career is formed as well. I think it's such a great characteristic to have as well and skill set to have. I think you're right, hr wears many hats and I don't see that going away anytime soon.
Speaker 1:And often the bigger the organization, the bigger the HR team. It can support different resources, of course, but the role of HR is just going to continue to evolve so much. We've got technology, we've got AI, we've got the future of work, we've got um workforces coming in, new generations coming into the workforce with different needs, wants and voices. So I think HR should and can really influence from a leadership perspective, because I think that's what's going to be the real difference in an organisation, because, yeah, we can see where it's worked and where it hasn't.
Speaker 2:Very much so and I think just two comments on it. You sort of highlighted the experience of great leaders. I'm also fortunate, or unfortunate to say I've also received the other extreme of bad leads, one to the point that actually drove me into a lot of lack of self-confidence and ended up going to counseling like I took I I swallowed my own words because I used to always advocate for erp like employee um those eap employee assistance lines and I ended up having to do that myself and I really had to work through a really tough experience.
Speaker 2:So those two extremes kind of guided me on kind of how, what I want, who I want to be, um and yeah, and it's setting me up quite a bit. But then to your other point, what you mentioned. I think the other thing about our roles as well is we are dealing with so much unknown so and when I know that we all know that. But how I'm if I think of what you've said and I think of maybe the audience, like how I think of it practically is I think we constantly have to sense, check what we are doing. And let me explain that more. Like I'm a big believer in covid changed all our policies changed because of covid. Like they just didn't make sense anymore, I think for nearly everything, and none of it made sense. And I think we couldn't, I think we were so well, not we. My experience at the time was we're so slow to address it. And then the way I get so many questions can I do this? The policy says this, and internally I'm like I don't care. Like you're humans, make a decision. But then I also realized, you know, something that's not helping. So the way I look at things now is we have to question, especially in HR are our frameworks and our policies and our practices fit for purpose? They are not wrong, but actually every time I look at something, is this really fit for purpose we are using?
Speaker 2:Most of our organizations have the word agility somewhere in our values or in our new ways of working. Most of our organizations have the word agility somewhere in our values or in our new ways of working. Agility means people need to be let, we need to let loose of some restrictions, and those restrictions are everything from what's written in our compliance, what's written our frameworks on performance management and reward job grades. All these things, you know, I think we have to question, question are they fit for purpose? I think, with that frame, I think, as a group of hr professionals, or at least people working in the space where we are, um, you know, trying to drive organizational transformation, that's what we have to ask ourselves.
Speaker 2:It's not. As is this right or wrong? Is, is it fit for purpose? Because we need to maintain that aspect of governance and support and guidance for the business, but we're also moving in a way that we can't be so directive anymore. The business needs to make decisions and I think enabling functions needs to be a bit more supportive and agile in how we respond to those, and that's where I this focus on technology, et cetera. That's the trigger to unlock a lot of this for us.
Speaker 2:Oh, massively, but we're just, I feel like at like 0.05% of understanding what this is and what this means. I think we talk excitedly about it, but I still think when I talk about AI, I'm still at that learning stage of using it to help me write emails. Yeah, yeah, I haven't gone any further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:And it's so interesting as well because I think actually, when we first initially maybe connected, it was around the time we were headed to singapore for our um, our workshop, and, yeah, really interesting, because we're in this room and we've got, you know, 25, 30 leaders in the room, all hr and talent, um, some individuals are from businesses where real progressive technology, ai, implementation and they could talk about all these really cool and life-changing tools, and then, on the other side of the table, people are just literally coming because they want to learn more about it, they want to understand it more so that they can maybe bring back something to their organization, and whether that's just hey, this is a tool that can help us write emails, or whether it's here's something that's going to help us predict our workforce strategy for the future.
Speaker 1:You mentioned a word there as well that I picked up on, which is being agile, and, of course, no better person to talk about agility. You've gone from Ireland to Australia, australia to Japan, japan to Singapore and roundabout again, japan to Singapore and roundabout again. Talk to us a little bit about that, paddy, because you know from a career perspective amazing what's been your key takeaway with a lot of the travel, the relocation, you know. You know it sounds like you're a type of person who can grab an opportunity pretty quickly, especially you're going from financial service to HR, to moving countries, you know.
Speaker 2:So what does that sort of journey kind of look like? So that's a loaded question. It is, let me. It's just funny the conversation I had before you. I mentioned sort of I'm here in Taipei and I just met with one of the team and we were talking about development and this person mentioned a word about like intelligent. Oh, I don't know if I'm smart enough and I said, look, that's so interesting because I actually would say that about myself. I don't think I'm that smart like I am. I was not that good in school. My university I enjoyed, but you know, do I love studying and learning?
Speaker 2:No, Do I learn by reading and theory. No, I need to learn by getting dirty. That's how I learn. I'm a much more practical learner. So what I'm trying to get at by opening with that is you painted a very nice picture of me being agile and moving. If you asked me seven years ago, paddy, would you ever live in Japan? I'd be like absolutely not. I can't speak the language. The culture is intense. I went on holidays. It was great, but it was crazy and I just would not make sense. Why would you put this man who lives in Australia and married to another man None of this makes sense going to a country like Japan? That just doesn't typically seem to facilitate it.
Speaker 2:And I did. Somebody gave me an opportunity and I went and it was linked to, in some ways, my development at the time and I went for six months and ended up staying for five years. And before I get into more on this in detail, there's something that I've learned in the last maybe seven or eight months from somebody in Suntory. They say it so nicely, they said it so nicely to me. They say we set the opportunity and fate will follow. And that just summarized, so nice maybe, what you're trying to say. I never thought I'd leave Australia. I married an Australian. He's a locksmith, he has no business, so it just didn't make sense to move in as well. But in my mind I kind of set an opportunity. I wanted to develop and grow. I wanted to probably get some international exposure. I was happy to do it from Australia. I wasn't thinking I want to move around the world and, hey presto, I went to Japan. And then the reason I moved from Japan was I really had to question what next? And I think most people will always understand that reflection point of what do you want? And I loved working for Coca-Cola. I actually loved it, but there just wasn't the right opportunity for me to speak and this amazing opportunity came up with Suntory and you know I thought let's go for it and see what happens. Tony and I both said we'd never move to Singapore because they don't support same, there's no equality on same-sex relationships. He wouldn't get a visa and we always said, wherever he goes, wherever we go next, he has to work. That was our principle at Japan, because he couldn't work in Japan but could get a visa, so that and I think, hopefully for people listening, you know, I didn't make a decision on my career, I just made a decision on my, my I'm gonna call it family. So there's tommy and I. So that was the decision that I had to make with him. Equally, 50 equal decisions on this, and we said we'd never go to Singapore. And hey presto, guess where I am now. So I think to your question, none of this is ever planned.
Speaker 2:I think for me what it is is just the curiosity to keep learning and growing. And it comes back to what I said. I'm chasing leadership. That's what my passion is. We are all ambitious. Every single person has ambition and ego. Most of us temper it very well. We work with people who are egotistical and probably too ambitious, they don't know how to temper. So if we think of the concept of a trust equation and where the self-orientation sits below the line, I do believe most people are very good at tempering with that self-orientation below the line. I do believe most people are very good at tempering that self orientation below the line. So I am ambitious. Yeah, I have a bit of an ego, but did I ever think that? You know what that looks like?
Speaker 2:For me is kind of chasing the leadership, more so than chasing the role. I mentioned those three principles that I have set for myself, which a coach helped me that guides me in how I think and do, and that's part of the opportunity I set and the faith currently has me living in Singapore doing just such a great role. I get to spend time with so many people in different role types. I feel such responsibility in my job about making sure that they have the right support, the right tools, the right engagement.
Speaker 2:And when people speak to me I know when I answer them I don't want to give them your standard HR answer. I want to try and give them the principle of what we're doing and maybe try and help them understand how they can bring it to life and maybe try and help them understand how they can bring it to life. And you know, even this trip in Taiwan I always say when I travel or do a visit, the return on investment of me being here because people give up time to be with me my return on investment is leaving with work to do to make things better for the people I met or the team and try and help enact change or remove obstacles etc. Again, I'm kind of on a bit of a ramble to the question that you asked, but that's the sort of stuff of the agility is kind of what my focus is, which is I chase the leadership, not necessarily, oh look it's such a cool story and I mean obviously the career side of things I always find quite interesting with my putting my recruitment hat on.
Speaker 1:But you know, I just find it quite cool as well. And you can hear the show, the listeners can as well. The, the passion, the authenticness, the, the energy in your tone when you're talking about this kind of stuff, so obviously you're fairly invested in it. One thing I I because I can relate to the travel side, um, especially moving from from ireland to australia. Um, I did find when I moved to australia although I've been here for well over a decade now it takes you a while to sort of settle in and get your head around the culture. I'm sure it does make things easier when you move within an organisation or for an organisation, but still you're trying to learn the new culture, you're trying to make new friends. You're no longer in that sort of comfort zone that you once were. Maybe you're away from family now. Like, did you sort of feel any of that or oh?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, look again, just trying to just to be real again. I know that you talked about sort of you know the energy, the passion of you, know the energy, the passion, it's there. But that come, all this excitement takes its toll because, at the end of the day, I only have 24 hours in a day. I want to sleep, I need to sleep. I would love to do more exercise because I am putting on the singapore stone, as I call it and again I just this responsibility I talk about.
Speaker 2:So, like, maybe to break it down a bit more, am I perfect? Absolutely not. Do I suffer from anxiety? Yes, and even like I'll kind of, but this is like gonna be a counseling session for me now. Um, I last.
Speaker 2:So I I moved to Just to give you a context of the story I moved to Japan in March oh sorry, august 2019 for six months to come, and after the six months, I was coming back to get married and then, during that time, it started to open up about me staying in Japan and taking on the role leading the HR function for Japan and Korea for Coca-Cola. So I was like, wow, this is amazing. So I went back to get married and as I went back, this little sniffle was starting I shouldn't make a joke of it, actually because it was COVID I'm talking about. So apologies, covid, and create offense with that comment, but you know, I remember at my wedding we were making jokes about oh, the guy from Japan, ha ha ha. You know, because COVID had started to be recognised in China, korea and Japan and then, three weeks later, australia shut its border and I remember leaving. I left the second last day before Sydney airport shot and I said to my partner, I said to him look, this will be over in three months. I'll be back.
Speaker 1:Because our plan was.
Speaker 2:Tony and I were going to commute back and forth.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, he had his own business.
Speaker 2:He was going to come up for once a month, spend maybe a long weekend or a week with me, depending on how much leave he could take, and then the alternative month, I was going to come back and work for two weeks in Australia from the Sydney office and the company was fine with that, was fine with that. So that never happened. So we only saw each other once in two years because both Australia and.
Speaker 2:Japan had the strictest border controls in the world, along with New Zealand, and it just was really difficult. So here we are, newly married, living apart, and I'm trying to settle into a brand new job, which was a big step up for me, in a very different culture which just is not forgiving. And when I say not forgiving, japan always wins. It's one of the things I learned no matter what you try and change in Japan, japan always wins. So you don't ever change anything in Japan is what I learned. You put stepping stones in place in cultures like Japan and in many Asian countries to help progress and move along. So I'm doing all this. It's intense and I'm on my own. So you know, making friends as an expat is not always as easy as it looks like in the pictures and what people hear. And especially when there's COVID and most people were leaving, nobody was coming in. So I learned to get bored.
Speaker 2:I learned to kind of enjoy it with myself and I took myself off on little weekend trips of my own around Japan and then, after two years maybe even longer we got Tony into Japan and then I think it was a natural work pressure, stress, like it has to be real. We all deal with it, and it's emotional, it takes its toll. It's waking up at four in the morning thinking through issues and it's getting frustrating. And then what are we in? We're in 2025, so maybe it was. I think it was November 2023.
Speaker 2:I went to the doctor because I wasn't. I went about a medical condition but I also wasn't sleeping. Great, I just said, hey, because the doctor was a Kiwi. So it was pretty helpful in Japan to have someone you could emotionally express. Yeah, for sure. And I just said look, you know, I'm just not sleeping. There's no chance you can give me a tablet to help me. And he goes why aren't you sleeping?
Speaker 2:So I talked about things. I was like I don't know. And he goes let's do a test. And we did a test and he goes Paddy, you're suffering from depression and I'm like what? I was like that's, and I again, I take myself as a pretty emot person. So I'm like you know, I wake up every day. Okay, I don't get up and can't get out of bed. I was like, okay, this is interesting, I get anxiety, because I do. I always have said I suffer from anxiety, for I think everyone does in their own way, but I'm very open about that and so I had to really think about it. You know, talk to my Tony, my husband, husband, and he was like, don't ignore this one, let's talk, keep talking. What's going on? And I ended up breaking into three buckets. This is, and again, I spoke to a counselor as well, because I was so curious what this was about. And you know, I've been given medication which I was very happy to take. I was like, look, if this is going to help me sort things out.
Speaker 2:So I boiled it down to three buckets in my life at the time. One was my work, you know, just working in global roles, and I think when you work in a global, regional role, there's a ton of pressure, time zone pressure, interpreting politics oh man, politics. So just managing all this, it was quite challenging in its own right. So I realized, and also I didn't know what I was going to do next, like where, after Japan, I didn't really want to come back to Australia. I knew I wanted to keep going. My preference was not to come back, so that was playing in my mind a lot, because that decision also impacts Tony, massively impacts Tony, and he had to have a say in it as well.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing was my relationship with Tony. Like you know, we all relationships adapt all the time and we got the added influence of him moving to Japan and not working. So that was a new thing as well. This adaption of the personal relationship and I'm saying this openly because I think again, people listening yeah, this will resonate. Let's not be stupid what happens at home is really impactful. It's the easiest thing to avoid because we're so busy with everything else in our lives. So, yeah, that was something to address.
Speaker 2:And then the third one was, which the counselor kind of highlighted to me, was you've isolated yourself and what it was. This was COVID. I never really appreciated it, but living in Japan, I just lost connection with people. It took me so much time I can text, so I wasn't talking to people, I wasn't having an outlet and I realized that was a huge piece for me. My real connections were people. I work with Tony at home in Japan. So he had to deal with everything I was listening, talking about or not talking about, and then I just really kind of lost contact with my friends because there wasn't a huge network for me in Japan. And that was a huge, huge learning for me, just the importance of connected, sense of belonging, talking to people. So I've ramped up massively my connection with my friends everywhere, whether it's through text or the odd random call that they get from me just checking in to say hi, really, really important. So you know that that part is really important.
Speaker 2:But I think maybe, as I say, the other thing I want to add to this, which is what I talk about when I talk about my mental health, is it links back to what I said. We all have ambition and ego and we're all driven by performance. And just because I will mention the word depression, it doesn't mean I'm any different, because I still am driven by the same ambitions. I chase the leadership, as I kind of term it, but I also, you know, I want to perform my best. And just because I feel like this doesn't mean I'm any less and I think that's something that's really heightened to me.
Speaker 2:Let's be real with ourselves in this modern world that we live in, and especially at the moment, with man, the media, what we're listening to, going on with tariffs, the future, no, it's just so uncertain. Yeah, so it's okay, I believe, to feel like this. It is actually not that I believe it is okay to feel like this and to be like this, and let's not be. Let's also remember that we are individuals who are driven by things and let's keep that purpose going. I think we're in a much healthier world, and certainly in Australia. The way we talk about mental health, recognize that it doesn't detract you. And what I'm learning is my awareness of myself and my emotional triggers I'm so heightened to. So I I they still get triggered, but I know how to manage it much more better. I'm much more aware of it. I know when I want to talk about it to people. I think that helps me a lot and kind of my career. And again, here I am in Singapore. It's not preventing me from chasing my kind of the opportunities that I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's OK to get these things and ask and query about them. And maybe you don't have like I'm just talking about someone else, but maybe someone else, maybe they don't have depression, but maybe they're listening to this and maybe they're seeing signs and they go and get professional help. Maybe they do, maybe they just don't know it. But the point I'm trying to make is, you know it's okay to have it and acknowledge it and then, like you did, you start working through the different resources and tools and whatever is available to professionals to kind of work through it. And I think you know it's really interesting because I feel like COVID definitely created a lot of anxiety and a lot of different sort of mental health issues for people because of the isolation and the unknown. And you know I've had friends that probably weren't able to deal with the lockdown and the isolation as much as others. And you know we've moved on over the years and the years have flown by and it's funny when you get the memories up now you're like, wow, everyone's wearing masks and you know I wasn't allowed to visit my neighbor, and you know, and obviously there was other stuff as well that was a bit more critical.
Speaker 1:But the point being is like you look at the world of work now, there's lots of questions and here in australia there's a big election coming up and they're talking about you know, back to the office, um, working from home policies and remote work, um, look, I, I'm, I'm on the side of, I think hybrid work is, is is good and it works for people.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm also mindful that, look, if you're going to offer remote work and your workforce are remote, like good on you, I think that works. But making sure that there are resources and programs and stuff in place for people that might feel isolated but don't want to speak up, because if they speak up they're like, oh, maybe they'll ask me to come to the office now. So there's a lot of things to talk about there. But I love the openness, the vulnerability, like I think that that all definitely creates the conversation and opens it up for you. And you know, like you said, from from the external, people would have been like, oh God, paddy's worked with some of the biggest organizations in the world. You've been flying around the world, living around the world in these high impact leadership roles, but then you know, your feelings are your feelings. So I think it's a pretty cool story.
Speaker 2:No, thank you, Thank you, Like it's just, yeah, like I know, I think when you are more aware of it and I think anyone maybe who might recognize the story, I think when you're aware of it and you talk about it, people will naturally open up and talk about it, and they share their own stories.
Speaker 2:And that's why I say we're just humans, we're trying to deal with so much. Like 15, 20 years ago there was more stability, like your career could be set out very clearly. It was really clear. Those days are gone. Yeah, if you want to and this maybe comes back to where I say it's kind of what you want and what you're driven by but if you want to work in typically large corporate organizations, you're not going to get a lot of that structure and stability. It's going to need to be more ambiguous, agile. You need to enjoy it and thrive it and keep you energized. Yes, it'll be stressful.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you're frustrated but that's usually, as humans, what we like to do, you know, especially as we all want more as well, both materially and for ourselves, our own well-being and our own self-professioning 100%, Mate.
Speaker 1:I'm mindful of your time as well because I know there's so much to talk about and I feel like I could sit here talking to you for hours. The key things you know from that episode I think you know there's some amazing discussions around leadership, some amazing discussions around that. You know putting yourself out there, taking a risk, being agile. And then you know that vulnerability piece, particularly around mental health and resilience and openness to talk. I think look great story. And I know you mentioned before the episode you're in a number of sort of planning and strategy sessions at the moment. So glad to take you away from that for a little bit, but I'm mindful you do. You do need to get back to it, but now appreciate your time, patty, and, uh, look forward to seeing you again in in singapore in the next couple of months yeah, thanks so much, shane.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the opportunity. It was great to do this. It was a pretty big experience for me as well, so I I'm pretty grateful for it, mate. So thank you so much, and to the listeners, thanks for listening. I hope I kept you engaged and please, you know, reach out to me on LinkedIn connect. I'm always happy to grow my network and get to know people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, yeah, reach out to Paddy 100% or reach out to myself, but yeah, thanks to all the listeners and until the next episode. Thank you, Paddy.
Speaker 2:Thanks, mate, take care, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the HR Community Podcast. Remember to like and subscribe and share your views and comments below. This podcast was brought to you by Civitas Talent, the HR and HSC recruitment community. Whether you're a candidate looking for a new role or organization looking to secure brand new talent for your team, please get in touch with us.
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