Last night, eight women found their voices. And it was spectacular.

Ask any parent and they'll tell you that structure and routine is vital for children.

There are a lot of parallels between raising kids and finding your voice. But one really stands out to me.

Routine and structure helps children feel safe, secure and confident to learn and grow. And we never grow out of that.

Even as adults, our brains crave order amidst a chaotic world. We organise cutlery drawers, calendars, car pools and wardrobes in an attempt to get things done so that we might make life work for ourselves and those we love.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I live a highly scheduled life.

5am wake up. 5.30am gym. 7am in the office. 10pm bed. And in between that is a flurry of meetings, blocked work hours, date nights and one-hour slots to watch the latest Star Trek, Star Wars or Slow Horses episodes.

For all the criticism that I frequently throw at university education, it is the structure and routine they provide that has helped elevate the world from warring fiefdoms to a cooperative network of towns, cities, countries and economic blocs that have reduced poverty in the world by a remarkable amount.

But of course there is a long way to go to reach utopia.

All this is talking about the big picture, though.

Where structure and routine work best is in the individual.?

And this is where eight women found their voices this week.

When you see something not right in the world, take time to explore that.

I have my friend AJ Kalatunga to thank for this. And also Gloria Tabi for always keeping inequality and discrimination fresh in my mind.

AJ has a term, "sea of sameness" that he uses for when he sees a line-up for a conference where speakers tend to all look the same, dress the same and inevitably come from the same background.

We chatted once about the line-up for a conference where literally every speaker was either a white man with greying hair or a white woman with blonde hair. And this was for an industry - accounting - where, at least in my town, nearly 60% of those who work in it are not white.

Gloria herself recalls years and years of experiencing racial and sexual discrimination in workplaces. She even went so far as to hide her natural hair under wigs in order to appear more acceptable to both workplaces and LinkedIn audiences. From 2020 when she started posting seriously on LinkedIn, she wore those wigs and chemically straightened her hair to "fit in."

In early 2024, she removed the wigs, let her glorious greying African hair shine through and she has not looked back.

Both AJ and Gloria saw something wrong with the world and did something about through systemically adjusting their thinking, taking a brave position online and changing minds like mine along the way.

But what if the "something not right" is in you?

When you don't own your voice, you don't own your world.

Spurred on by people like Gloria and AJ - and the many international students that I have been working with in Darwin that were constantly overlooked and marginalised in networking events and in the broader community, I came up with an idea.

If there is a lack of diversity in this "sea of sameness" in events, conferences and workshops, then why?

And yes, sure, there are systemic barriers in the way that have been perpetuated over centuries to elevate one group of people over others.

But I can't change a whole system. But what I can do is punch through a wall to create a door to let others through with me.

After all, I've been getting paid to train people, speak to people and be listened-to for years now. From being picked up my Meta/Facebook in late 2018 as one of their five Aussie trainers, to being given opportunities to share stages with industry and political leaders.

I had access to a world that others didn't.

So I opened a door in the wall between worlds.

I created networking events made for people who don't get invited to network.

And I created a public speaking program that was free, sponsored by those who I had access to and invited everyone in.

Thirty two people came through the door.

Over five months of workshops and coaching, encouragement, tears, triumphs and doubts, eight women were left standing on a stage last night to give their very first keynote addresses to a live audience.

And they crushed it.

I may have opened a door, but they stepped through it.

The program involved five months of scheduled training on Saturday mornings, a format much like a TEDtalk and a lot of practice. Every single one of them considered leaving the program because it was hard. None of them are speakers. None of them truly believed that they had what it would take to succeed.

But when they stepped through that door, something changed.

They trusted the process - and I am utterly humbled to say that they trusted me with the insecurity, the tears and the rollercoaster ride that changing your life involves.

I've never been so honoured in my life as I was when these right women took the stage last night and showed that they were ready, willing and able to be more than even they thought they could be.

Where there are walls, create doors.

When there are ceilings, create skylights.

Where they are people saying no, say yes.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

That's all for this weekend. Just one short read about how routine, structure and letting people in on your privileges can change so much in the world.?

If you're not getting value out of these tips, please consider unsubscribing.

I won't mind and there are no hard feelings.

And if you are enjoying this newsletter, the best compliment you could pay me would be to share it with one person who you think would benefit from it.

See you again next week.

Cheers,

Dante

P.S. Here's a few free ways I can lend a hand if you need some help

I do a lot on LinkedIn. I'm in there everyday creating content that I hope can help people out with getting better at being online and being noticed. I'd love you to connect with me. Join my profile here.

My Get Noticed, Get Booked online mini-course has been completed by over 1500 people now. It's a 5-week email delivered series of things you can do to attract more attention and bookings. Start it here .

I'm putting together a series of free webinars for you watch live and via YouTube afterwards for November, December and January. Tell me what you'd like to learn about most here .

And here's some of the new tools I'm using to get my work done.

I'm currently migrating all my customer relations, websites, marketing activities and social media monitoring to True Blue Connect. In fact, this newsletter will come from it next week. It's locally operated and supported right here in Darwin too. Find out more about it here.

Perplexity is an AI writing and research tool that doesn't make stuff up (like ChatGPT often does. It's now my most used AI tool. It's free and it's here.

I've been using Neuron Writer for over a year. I now have over 100 articles ranking on Google because of it. Get it here.

I've been levelling up my writing of blogs, articles, social posts and even the scripts for videos and podcasts using Dan Koe's Kortex app. It creates a whole new type of flow for content exploration and writing - and given that I recently hit 4 millions views for my LinkedIn content the past week, it is definitely working! Check it out here .

Motion is the calendar I use to bring all my calendars together. It's also how people book time with me. Check it out here.

Video doesn't have to be hard. For me, it's not something I can do on a mobile phone. I use the desktop version of CapCut to easily add captions, transitions and chop and change visuals. Check it out here.