August 4, 2026 – Raj Ananthanpillai and Employ Partners  Sue Mathieson

00:04 Intro 1
In the AM Radio Network, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy who believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk, or passion, Jim Beach.

00:28 JIM BEACH
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. I hope you’re having a great day out there, riding the roller coaster life, making some money, building some contracts, growing your network, doing everything that us entrepreneurs do to take over the world and grow America. Got a fantastic show for you today. Very excited, 2 fantastic stories. First up, we have Raj Ananthanpillai. I think I almost got it.

01:02 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Correct.

01:02 JIM BEACH
I blow it during the introduction. I’m so sorry. It’s so rude. He is a cybersecurity expert, and we talk about background checks. Imagine a background check in the commercial world, in our everyday lives, and how much difference that would make. He runs an amazing… We’ll get into what Raj is doing. After that, we have Sue Matheson from Melbourne. We are going to talk about resilience, Employ Partners, and all sorts of good things. We have a great conversation as well. Integrity, resilience, Australian differences. It’s a great conversation. Appreciate all of you for listening. Thanks so much. Tell your friends because it is free. Welcome back to the show again.

01:51 JIM BEACH
Thank you so very much for being with us today. I’m very excited to introduce my first guest. He is going to provide us some great information about security. Please welcome Raj Ananthanpillai. Oh, damn. Ananthanpillai. Help me, Raj.

02:11 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Ananthanpillai.

02:13 JIM BEACH
Sorry.

02:13 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Ananthanpillai.

02:14 JIM BEACH
He is the…

02:15 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yeah.

02:16 JIM BEACH
Founder and CEO of Trua, which is a digital trust, identity-verification, and cybersecurity company. He is also the author of 3 books that I found. The most recent one is called The Trust Crisis: How Big Tech Stole Your Identity—and the New Model That Takes It Back. Raj has had a very successful career as an entrepreneur. He previously founded Endera, which is now a subsidiary of Trua. And for 13 years, he was the leader of InfoZen, and that company had major government contracts involving TSA PreCheck and things like that. He also started a company called NetBalance, which was acquired in 2000. Very impressive. Raj. Welcome to the show.

03:05 JIM BEACH
Sorry, I have trouble with your last name. It’s, it’s got too many, uh, chunks in it. Just a long word for me. Welcome to the show.

03:18 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yes, it is. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate you having me on the call today.

03:24 JIM BEACH
So how many patents do you have?

03:28 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Um, I think we just got the last one 2 weeks ago, so it’s probably now 8 for me personally for the company. About seven. I got my first one when I was at AT&T. So, uh, But I don’t do that just for the sake of it, right? You know, it comes along. You don’t have to, uh, it’s not a big lift when you’re working on something unique and novel and innovative. So we just want to protect it for a while. So that’s that’s my objective.

04:04 JIM BEACH
Well, you certainly deserve some protection. So tell us about Trua. How do you pronounce this?

04:11 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
So, yeah, Trua, T-R-U-A. And then, you know, it is truame.com, basically. We are basically like TSA PreCheck for the commercial world, if you want to think about it. So you are familiar with TSA PreCheck. You get your information verified once, you get your KTN, which is the Known Traveler Number, and then you input that whenever you fly, so you zip through airports. Airlines, it does not matter. They all accept it. And we were the authors of that at my previous company, InfoZen, along with many other national-security programs. So when the Equifax breach happened in 2017, it dawned on me. I said, why are we using Social Security numbers over and over again to verify individuals?

05:02 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Why can’t we do the same thing that we did with TSA PreCheck and bring it to the commercial world? So after I’d sold that company and, you know, I was trying to see, okay, how do I bring some society good to the next generation? So that is when we started architecting this whole Trua system. And today we have what is called a Trust Credential for Life. You get it once, you spend 5 minutes, maybe, and then get everything verified to the extent that you want to verify, but a minimum is your identity. And then you get a digital wallet, and then you can use that anywhere and everywhere. So there are 2 major applications, right?

05:51 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
One to many and many to many. What I mean by that is one to many is basically like an employer having you go through the screening and then you are part of the process for the first time in history. Nobody else has ever done that because in the past, when you apply for a job, the employer does your background check without you ever knowing anything about it, and you are in the loop, when something is not right, and say, hey, you know, we got issues or this or that, so dispute resolution. So they’re all prone for litigation, wrongful claims, and all of those things. Big companies have armies of lawyers, but small and medium companies do not.

06:40 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
They don’t have a big compliance department. They don’t have a whole lot of sophisticated HR organizations or the enough insurance to carry for somebody to sue you for wrongful claims and other things. So I said the best thing to do is bring some of that up front and co-opt the individual into the process. So when the individual looks at it and say, hey, this is great, this is all me, I certify it, and then they share it with the employer, uh, as part of the uh, uh, onboarding process. So you’re eliminating a whole slew of compliance issues, whole slew of litigation issues, wrongful claims, any of those things. In the process.

07:30 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
So that is the fundamental benefit in this new-generation architecture, so to speak.

07:37 JIM BEACH
Okay, so I, as an individual, get certified for life, and then I am certified in commercial spaces, right? So your hope is that then commercial websites will accept your verification for me to buy…

07:51 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yeah, so that is absolutely true. So what we are doing right now, because how do you see the market? We are asking all of the employers and sponsors to go say, hey, you know, use this method. You’ve been using the method, right? You know, it’s, it’s very difficult sometimes to introduce a new concept and people have to buy. This is not a new buy. It is the same budget, instead of doing it the other way, which has a lot of loopholes and potential litigation and compliance issues. Use the same process, a little cheaper because it’s all digital native, and also verified by the applicant. So, so right now, you know, you know, several, several 10s of customers, are using this.

08:42 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Say, “Hey, this is an alternative way to do your background check on your employees.” And then when you have enough of that, then it’s acceptable, right? Anytime you have a new concept of a new product, people want awareness. So we started about three years ago. It is already gaining ground. So we are hoping that this will prove it. And my hope is because the SMBs have limited compliance or if any, or HR budget and and also, you know, not a whole lot of liability in cyber insurance. So this is important way to perform the screening of candidates as they bring in.

09:27 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And more importantly, what this does is they don’t have to store any of the personal information that belongs to the applicants, except for your payroll purposes, which is a separate segment anyway. So this avoids carrying all the PII on premisess, subject to hacking, especially in this AI world. It has just gone through the roof.

09:51 JIM BEACH
Okay, I love it. That makes a lot of sense. So how are you selling the product then? Are you going in through HR departments?

10:01 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yes. Right now we are targeting HR and recruiters and say, hey, use this. It’s very easy. The way it’ll work is just exactly the way you’ve been doing. Oh, I want to bring on, say, 100 people this year, right? You sign up for Trua, you’ll get your own little portal within less than 24 hours, and then you can start sending invites. Anytime they are looking for an applicant to bring on board, send the invite, and then the applicant fills it out and goes through the process with Trua. They get the credential, and that is shared with the employer.

10:39 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
The employer will see that you have been verified using a government-issued ID, like a passport or driver’s license; that your Social Security number, date of birth, and address have been verified; and that criminal records, civil issues, professional licenses, education, or whatever else they want checked have been reviewed. Basically: no criminal record, no civil record. That’s all the employer needs to know. Right? They don’t need to know all the juicy details of everything, nor the raw PII. So they get that information and boom, done. And so they can bring the the applicant on board and then go through the other process, whatever they are doing.

11:30 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And the best part about it is this is a big difference. In the current structure. Okay? You cannot request a background check until you offer employment to the individual. In our process, because it’s a user driven as well, right? Because there’s a first party verification involved, you can have the applicant get it anytime and every time. So that is the reason why when this expands to, for example, in the gig economy, right? So ultimately, I would like everybody to have like a gig passport, which is basically their entire digital credential, and then they can go hop from platform to platform and the platform says, hey, I need to verify before I let you on and provide services.

12:24 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Oh, yep, here’s my passport. Just like when you go to a local outfit and they want to verify your identity. They ask you for a driver’s license, which is usually cursory because you could have a fake driver’s license. In this case, it’s everything is verified and proved. So that is where many-to-many will happen in due course. I envision that we have 60 or 70 million gig workers in the country. And, you know, every time they want to go hop on a platform to provide whatever they’re providing for plumbing service or childcare, elder care, whatever it is, they have to go through this whole rigmarole of getting screened over and over again.

13:18 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And what do they do? They have to give out their personal information for that. All these honeypots are created across the digital ecosystem and become prime targets for hackers. Hackers. And that’s the reason why the litigation is through the roof and your cyber insurance is going through the roof as well. Because everybody say, hey, I have to insure because you’re collecting personal information. No, you don’t have to collect personal information. You can collect marketing information, such as email and demographic data, but not PII like Social Security number, date of birth, driver’s-license number, passport details, and all those things.

14:09 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
So this is the best way to accomplish this, reduce the data breaches, reduce litigation, reduce wrongful claims in the background check space, and so on and so forth.

14:22 JIM BEACH
How much does it cost?

14:23 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
It’s about the same as a regular background check if you want the complete one. It’s like $50 to $60 depending on the volume and other things, right? Currently the it could be as low as $20 depending on if you just want verify the identity of an individual using a government issued ID and just do a criminal check, for example, or education check. But if you want more, that’s where the cost goes up to. So, which is very, very competitive, in fact, slightly less than industry average.

15:02 JIM BEACH
Am I allowed to run a background check or do I have to get their permission?

15:09 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
So, um, you can get for yourself, but you cannot get for somebody else. Right? But somebody else, they have to consent and say, hey, I’m going to be hiring you, uh, you know, get your uh, uh, credential ahead of time.

15:25 JIM BEACH
You can do that. Okay, so at what point in the process should they get Trua? As soon as they start, only when they get hired, or when?

15:34 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
No, no, no, but hopefully. They all have it forever. Yes, yes, yes. You can say, because we think of Trua as also being like a credit bureau, right? So we have something called TruaScore. And you can say you can advertise for a position. You can today you can do that and say, hey, we, I’m just making this up. You need a, you know, associate’s degree with a, I’m just making this up with a plumbing license, right? And you need to have a score. Our score is from zero to 360. You need to have a TruaScore of, say, 300 and above. For argument sake. They will say, “What is the TruaScore?” You have to go get your TruaScore. You give them the URL, they get it, and it is 320.

16:27 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Boom, done. You’re on board. So as soon as you finish interviewing them, technical interview, you can onboard them the same day. Today, it takes 3 to 4 weeks sometimes or maybe 2 weeks to bring somebody on board. Think of this big industrial boom that is going on with data-center expansion, manufacturing reshoring, and all kinds of stuff. We are addressing the skills gaps there using things like microcredentials and new American training academies, and so on and so forth. So we are bridging that skill gap, but still, onboarding is the biggest bottleneck right now, doing a background check.

17:12 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
You can tell them, as soon as they earn an associate’s degree, give them the option to get their credential right then and there. That way, they carry it with them as they enter the workforce. And you’re ready to hire them the same day. Assuming they…

17:31 JIM BEACH
Put a badge on your résumé that says, “I am Trua-certified already,” or—

17:37 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Absolutely, yeah. You can do that. All of those things. And here’s another thing. Companies are literally drowning. As soon as they advertise one position, they get 10,000 résumés. They are all driven by AI bots and whatnot. Excuse me. If they say, “When you apply for this, you have to get a Trua credential,” because our credential has a token number like a Known Traveler Number—it will have a Trust Token Number— your résumé should include the token number.

18:12 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Instead of getting 10,000 résumés, you can filter that out. You might get just ten résumés, which is exactly what you want for one position. Then you go through the subjective interviews knowing full well that there are human beings behind those ten résumés, that they have at least verified their identity, and that they are not North Koreans applying for your jobs, which is a big issue now.

18:42 JIM BEACH
How’d you get this idea, Raj? Where’d the idea come from?

18:47 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
The whole purpose was that in 2017 the Equifax breach happened. About 147 million people were affected. Their personal information got stolen. Social security and everything. I said, there got to be a better way to do this. We should provide like an alias for everybody instead of using SSN. And then while we’re building that and say, hey, let’s enhance this, right? The background-check industry is still fully regulated because you can only ask for a check after employment is offered. I started expanding it and said, “Let’s get the individuals involved.” They cannot change anything, but at least have them verify certain things.

19:37 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
It’s their data. It’s their background. Why not empower them a little bit, right? We always assume consumers are dumb. But at some point, we got to keep educating them, especially the Gen Z’s and the new generation. They’re all pretty native with digital and other technology. We should say, hey, look at your data. And also it also in the ultimate, you know, societal good is, hey, wait a minute. My score went down. I should be very careful next time about drinking and driving. Okay, so this is also a little bit of subtle education over the long haul, right? That’s what you want to do. We can be putting band-aid over and over again, hope and pray that something is going to solve.

20:28 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And AI has exacerbated and amplified the situation. Because you have no idea who is a real human being anymore.

20:37 JIM BEACH
You are.

20:38 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Thank you.

20:39 JIM BEACH
Yeah, thanks.

20:40 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Thank you. Thank you.

20:41 JIM BEACH
So what did you do first when you saw the idea? How did you get started and build out? Did you self-fund?

20:50 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
No, yeah, it’s all self funded. I’ve not taken any outside capital. You know, God bless. You know, I had some success in my previous companies and exited that. I said, this is something that I want to do. And then we did this and I said, okay, how do I educate this society? Right? So that’s when I said, you know what? Let me put my thoughts in a paper and start writing different articles. And then somebody suggested, my daughter actually said, you should write a book about it. Hmm, that’s interesting. It’s been a long time since I wrote a book, you know, I wrote my other books in the 90s and whatnot. So I said, you know what, let me do that.

21:39 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
I started putting it down, and then people said, “Yeah, we can publish this.” This looks like a great topic, timely topic and whatnot. Once the book was getting closer to publication, we were talking about royalties and other things. And I said, you know what? I don’t need that royalty. I’d rather give that to a nonprofit. So that is helping, you know, I’m a solutionist at heart. So if there’s a problem, I’ll find a solution for it. So that’s exactly what I’ve done, right? So I wrote a book and I want to get this in as many hands as possible. At the same time, 100 percent of the book’s sale proceeds are going to a nonprofit called the Identity Theft Resource Center.

22:34 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
So they actually help victims of identity theft, and they also have education programs. So I said, okay, those are the things that are required in society. So let’s do some good. So that’s what I’m doing.

22:50 JIM BEACH
Excellent. I love that. The book’s title is The Trust Crisis: How Big Tech Stole Your Identity—and the New Model That Takes It Back. So how did big tech steal my identity? Remember, in the digital world— Let’s go to the first part now.

23:08 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yeah, so remember the original idea of, you know, download this app, download this app or, you know, get your free email, get your free this and whatnot. So what happened there? You know, they said, hey, give me your information so that you can get a free email, give me information, you get a free app that you can download and, you know, measure your, you know, whatever test, right? So there’s the app for everything. They always ask you for some information. And then they get your trust, and then you start building relationship with that app, and then you start giving more and more information. Think about it, right? 15, 20 years ago, your email was your primary identifier and your social was your primary identifier, right?

24:04 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And the date of birth then became, your mother’s maiden name became. Then came knowledge-based authentication, such as “What car did you drive in 1995?” or “What is your mother’s maiden name?” You know, they’re all called KBA. Then they said you have to have a cell phone. Okay? You know, to have a mobile phone because they have to text you something. So you give your cell phone now. So the cell phone is now being hacked. So keep hacking, right? They keep collecting this information over and over again because they’re trying to provide you something for free and they were using it for marketing purposes.

24:54 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
And the way they were the digital platforms, at least when they were introduced, they were being rewarded by Wall Street and investors is, hey, how many eyeballs you’ve got? Right? I am sure, if you dig up the history, you will see the “eyeball” revenue calculation. How many people are coming to your site? Of course, when you give something away for free, people will flock to your website. Whether they are going to buy or not is a different story. And they were measured, oh, you’re getting all these people coming to your side, you’re collecting all that information, that’s good for marketing purposes, and then I’m going to get future revenue.

25:45 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
There is a lot more to the story than that. You know, that’s what I’ve detailed, uh, uh, in my book about how we went about that, uh, um, whole evolution of giving out our personal information in return for a quick favor or quick uh, freebie. And that is exactly what happened. And now they’re all suffering under their own weight because the regulators are coming down, uh, uh, you know, with heavy fines for privacy issues, for breach issues and so on and so forth.

26:35 JIM BEACH
Excellent, very impressive. Are we getting better or worse as a society with our security?

26:42 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Well, it is getting worse because of AI. That’s and the problem is we are still trying to fix the legacy system, legacy infrastructure, legacy trust infrastructure. This is the new infrastructure. I’m talking about. Do the same thing that the financial services industry did 30 plus years ago when they were all collecting all your information to determine if you’re credit worthy or if I can give you a loan. And then they said, okay, you know what? I don’t want to do that. I will use your Social Security number, ping a credit bureau, and they will give me a credit score and a credit report. That is exactly what needs to happen for trust and identity.

27:32 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
In this case. You get your Trust Token Number, and those who want to rely on you or do business with you bounce that number against a trust bureau and say, “Give me some information.” They get a trust score, if there is one, or verification of the areas in which the individual has been verified. And without ever collecting any PII. This is a big issue for SMBs as well because they are suffering because they don’t have any other alternative. They are stuck in this legacy infrastructure. I cannot put the genie back in the bottle, but at least going forward, I can contain it.

28:21 JIM BEACH
Or give it a name.

28:23 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Yep.

28:23 JIM BEACH
That is brilliant. I love this idea. I cannot wait to see how it plays out, and I think I am going to get my Trua credential here. Raj, how do we find out more follow online, get in touch, get a copy of the book.

28:43 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
You can go to truame.com, T-R-U-A-M-E dot com. You have all kinds of information there. You can also go to Amazon and search for The Trust Crisis or Raj Ananthanpillai, A-N-A-N-T-H-A-N-P-I-L-L-A-I. Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart all have it.

29:10 JIM BEACH
Fantastic. Raj, thank you so very much for being with us. Great information and we hope you’ll come back soon.

29:20 RAJ ANANTHANPILLAI
Thank you, Jim. I really appreciate you giving me an opportunity to talk about this.

29:27 JIM BEACH
Our pleasure. We will be right back to talk about how to be more resilient, how to get on corporate boards, some other cool stuff like that. We will be right back.

29:41 intro 1
Well, that’s a wonderful question, actually. Oh, my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim. Wow, that’s awesome. That’s great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and I don’t have a great answer. That’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. Yeah, that’s actually a really good question. School for Startups Radio.

30:23 JIM BEACH
We are back again. Thank you so very much for being with us. I’m very excited to welcome from Australia, our next guest. Please welcome Sue Matheson to the show. She has had a very interesting career both in the corporate world and also in the entrepreneurship space. She has had a lot of experience in the healthcare industries and in the mining industries. They are working for others. She was a project manager and things like that. She also has her own business called Employ Partners, which works on leadership, resilience, and building integrity. Sue has published several books. Maybe we’ll have some time to talk about it.

31:11 JIM BEACH
Well, I love the title of one of them. Get a Klu in 52 for Speakers, which came out a couple of years ago and is obviously information for speakers. She also contributed to a book called I Said YES: How to Create Boundaries, Stand in the Spotlight and Be Authentically You. She is now working on speaking careers and helping people become better speakers. She is also very active on corporate boards and at churches. She is active in the Baptist Church community. Sue, very impressive. Welcome to the show. How you doing?

31:51 SUE MATHIESON
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Jim. I’m doing really well. Actually.

31:55 JIM BEACH
Yes. That is awesome. Are you enjoying your winter?

32:00 SUE MATHIESON
Winter is cold. I’m in Melbourne, so I’m down south. And yeah, it gets nice and cold here. I would have, I would equate it with, um, If you lived, say, uh, Northern California, like if you were getting up towards Oregon, you know, we’d probably match climates, I think.

32:21 JIM BEACH
Okay. You know our geography very well.

32:25 SUE MATHIESON
Well, I a bit of a trick there. My sister lives in California, so…

32:31 JIM BEACH
I see.

32:31 SUE MATHIESON
I’m, I’m barely, I do have a bit of a, um, a win there.

32:38 JIM BEACH
Excellent. Tell us about how you got started and your career. I love that we see mining on your resume. That’s just so unusual for an American resume, but for Australia, that’s one of your biggest, biggest industries and biggest exports. Walk us through the beginnings of your career. Then we’ll get toward the entrepreneurship pieces.

33:00 SUE MATHIESON
Sure. Sorry. Mining was actually very early in my career, and I did not stay in it for very long. It was for a variety of reasons, but it was certainly an amazing space to be in and to have a business trip. In my early twenties, I traveled across to the other side of Australia, to Western Australia. So that’s where a lot of the mines are is in Western Australia. That was an experience. It was pretty daunting to be asked to go into an environment. Mining is very male dominated, that comes with a pretty strong personality of people. Um, but I Embraced it and had an amazing experience.

33:50 SUE MATHIESON
It was very good. I had a specific role to do when I did that. It set me up for building relationships with people and understanding the importance of having conversations so that if I’ve got an objective in mind that I need to meet. And it also highlighted to me, Because I made a, one mistake I did make, I was offered the opportunity. I was farther down south, near Perth. I was offered the opportunity to go all the way right up to the top of Western Australia to visit a mine. Up there. And I said no. And that was, it has stuck with me my whole life since.

34:39 SUE MATHIESON
Don’t say no.

34:40 JIM BEACH
Did saying no hurt your career, or has the lesson about having the bravery to say yes stuck with you?

34:48 SUE MATHIESON
No, the bravery is to say yes to opportunity. Don’t allow yourself to be constrained by your own feeling of inadequacy or coming up with reasons why you shouldn’t do, do something. That is what I did in that moment when I was offered the opportunity. I came up with all the reasons why I shouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it instead of just saying yes and figuring out how I was going to make it happen. I missed out on an amazing experience: being flown up to the mine. At the company’s expense, so it wasn’t going to be my expense. But I needed to be able to say yes in that moment and I didn’t.

35:39 SUE MATHIESON
That has stuck with me too. Say yes and then figure out how you’re going to do it.

35:44 JIM BEACH
All right. We all have those things that we regret for a long time.

35:50 SUE MATHIESON
Well, hopefully we learn from them.

35:52 JIM BEACH
Yeah, we hope so.

35:55 SUE MATHIESON
We hope so. Yes.

35:58 JIM BEACH
All right, so keep moving along with the career. Start from that.

36:02 SUE MATHIESON
Yeah, so bulk of my career has been in healthcare. Even in healthcare, financial and business management was mostly my expertise. Even though I was in healthcare, I had a little bit of experience from a clinical perspective, but mostly, it was quite broad in terms of the specialties or support services, I should say, that I worked with. So that went across engineering. That went across engineering, support workers, personal-care assistants, food-services people, and people and culture. So I had an incredibly rich experience in terms of the people that I worked with. I’ve been very, very fortunate in some of my experiences there. Yeah.

36:49 SUE MATHIESON
Most recently—and there is a space in between—I just completed a big project building a brand-new hospital. I was part of the team on this $1.5 billion hospital. Um, so that was a, Quite a quite an interesting journey.

37:09 JIM BEACH
Is healthcare Socialized in Australia? Is it government-funded? 100%?

37:14 SUE MATHIESON
Well, no. There is both private and public healthcare. But Australia does provide a very, we have what we call a Medicare system and that provides a significant portion of public healthcare. Pretty much any Australian can go and get the care that they need. Which is, yeah, pretty amazing.

37:36 JIM BEACH
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But then the taxes on the other side are pretty amazing too. So.

37:45 SUE MATHIESON
Yes.

37:48 JIM BEACH
Well, you got to pay for it somehow.

37:51 SUE MATHIESON
That’s right.

37:52 JIM BEACH
All right. And then deciding to start off and do something on your own. Why?

37:58 SUE MATHIESON
It came out of—and this is something I would caution people who want to go into business for themselves about—a negative reaction. People that want to go into business for themselves and it’s, Because it came out of a negative reaction. I was in a very toxic work environment. There was a lot of history behind it. It was having a significant mental-health impact on me. I had already been down that journey once, and I became conscious of it. I thought, I don’t want to do this again. The issue I have in hindsight was that it was a reactive decision. It was, I’ve got to get out.

38:47 SUE MATHIESON
And I didn’t plan well enough. I did do it. I followed through. I left corporate. I went out into consulting, starting up my own business and moving into a coaching environment. Oh, moving into a coaching environment and. It was hard. It really was a struggle. Yes, it got me out of the toxic environment, but I had made the mistake of not planning well enough to make that a success. I learned a lot along the way. I had the. I had the really fortunate experience of connecting with an organization from the U.S. that helped me build a global network.

39:37 SUE MATHIESON
So I actually spent a lot of time over in the US at that stage. And was opened up to, The entrepreneurial way of thinking in many ways and challenging myself in terms of where I needed to learn. Again, reinforce the importance of building networks. But it was not enough for my success in terms of planning and making sure I had a financial base to keep me going so I could effectively get the organization off the ground. So I pushed ahead for about 4 or 5 years, then went back into a job situation. But then we took all those lessons and essentially did a take two.

40:25 SUE MATHIESON
So this is now. With all of that experience bringing it together. With all that experience brought together, I am in it for the long game and able to help other organizations. What I am about is helping organizations understand: How can they perform under pressure? What do they need to do? What are the gaps? And it’s very much come out of my own experience, the mistakes that I made. It comes very much from my own experience, the mistakes I made from an entrepreneurial perspective, and the observations and experiences I have had in the corporate world.

41:09 JIM BEACH
Very successful career. Can we talk about some of your skill sets now, some of the things that you help others with? For example, resilience. How do we keep fighting when things are bad and we’re down and life sucks.

41:27 SUE MATHIESON
Yes, yes. One of the things I learned, and again, it comes back to, and I’m very grateful for a lot of, People from the US that I’ve met. You mentioned a book that I co-authored with Jeffrey Klubeck called Get a Klu in 52 for Speakers. That was a couple of years ago. Now, I first met Jeff here in Melbourne and he’s from San Diego. He. Introduced a framework. He introduced a framework called The Integrity Game. It is a ten-point model. That has become very much the backbone of how I operate personally, and it helps from the resilience perspective you are talking about, Jim. Um, it helps to build.

42:15 SUE MATHIESON
That backbone, that structural integrity to be able to withstand pressure. That is what I have incorporated into the way I work and into how I help other organizations understand what they can do in the way they work together. And how they structure their teams, how they approach issues. And it means that when they’ve got fast decisions to make. They are so aligned that they can stay on track and they don’t get pulled off into different directions. Maybe you can help me out a bit, Jim. How does that align? How does that align to other conversations that you’ve had with people or your own experience? I mean, when I’ve looked at your background, you’ve worked with a lot of organizations.

43:06 SUE MATHIESON
Is that similar to what you have found—that people without a very clear picture tend to get pulled into snap decisions and may later regret them? Is that something that…

43:19 JIM BEACH
Very true that… Long-term success is incredibly dependent on consistency in decision-making. If you have one decision that stands out from the rest, sticking out like a nail on a deck, it can define your career in a bad way or a good way. It depends on how you decide to frame it, I guess. In terms of resilience, I have found that the only way I have been able to be resilient is to double down on work and escape into work, as opposed to wallowing in the bad things in front of me at that moment.

43:57 SUE MATHIESON
Right. And that’s that’s been your go to.

43:59 JIM BEACH
Yes. And I’ve had, uh, huge ups and downs as most entrepreneurs have. You know, I’ve gone through corporate bankruptcies and personal disasters and things, you know, I, one time, Sue, this is a really stupid thing. The doctor said, you’re so sick. I’m going to go get you a hospital room. You stay here and I’m going to check you into the hospital and I put my clothes back on and snuck out of the doctor’s office because I had more important stuff to do. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So anyway, I have been, uh, up and down and have had many, many bad times, including very recently, uh, recently, life has been very difficult for me.

44:51 JIM BEACH
I lost both of my parents within a year and, uh, you know, we’ve had some family troubles because of that. And so it’s been very difficult. And the only way that I can get through it is by finding something useful and productive to do either physical work outside or sitting down and writing. Um, I’ve gotten so much writing done in the last couple of years because I’ve wanted to get my mind off of a lot of stuff.

45:23 SUE MATHIESON
Yes, yes, yeah. Well, and that’s probably helped you process too. Putting pen to paper—or fingers on the keyboard—has probably allowed you to pull things together, make sense of them, and even prioritize. And and that’s certainly something that I think is really important. To be able to get that clarity around why are you doing what you’re doing? And I’m assuming, and correct me if I’m wrong, that that’s helped you. As you’ve moved through some of these challenges that you’ve been able to get clarity.

45:59 JIM BEACH
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Talk to me about that book, the get a clue in 52. Give us some of the tips that you remember for speakers. A lot of our listeners, uh, are very interested in becoming speakers. What are some of the tips?

46:17 SUE MATHIESON
Sure. It is essentially broken down into five sections. The first section focuses on the framework I have just been talking about, The Integrity Game framework, which was founded by Jeffrey Klubeck. It is the 10 point model. So the first section focuses on that, and that looks, I will give them really quickly. Understanding your purpose. What are your competitive advantages? What is your potential, your goals? The strategies, resources, and tactics: how do those align with your word and commitment? So, and that’s not only your commitment to others, but also your commitment to yourself. And then, what are the actions and behaviors coming out of that?

47:09 SUE MATHIESON
And it goes on. There are four other points. But that sets things up because it answers a question. To be a great speaker, you really need to first understand why you want to be a speaker. And how you’re going to go about that before you even think about writing a speech. And then it also looks at how to bring out your brand. So takes all of the answers to that first section. And then, Helps you to synthesize what is the brand? What makes you different and how are you going to serve those that you are speaking to? That really helps you frame how you are going to be an amazing speaker.

47:57 SUE MATHIESON
So that, and it goes on, there’s a few other sections in terms of specifically helping you to construct and write a speech. But the first, I think the first tip, Would be, understand why. Why do you want to be a speaker? What is it that how is it going to serve you? Is it going to bring you fulfillment? Is it going to be financially rewarding? And then answering the question, In terms of why you want to speak, how is it going to serve others? So that would be one of my top tips.

48:35 JIM BEACH
All right, great advice. Let’s move on to boards. I wanna talk about that for a second too. How do you get on boards? How do you, I think a lot of entrepreneurs who listen to this show also would love to be on a board or two? How do you make that happen?

48:55 SUE MATHIESON
Yes. Relationship? Relationships would be very, very high on that list. Identify organizations that are a good fit in terms of your interests and skill set and that would benefit from having you and the experience you bring to boards. So it’s identify the organizations that are a good fit. Then start to research who has been a past board member. This is where LinkedIn becomes a really good resource. Look at past board members of the organization you are considering. Yeah, yeah. Reach out to them. Identify the synergies that you have in terms of experience. And then once you have a connection, then come back with a message and explain.

49:47 SUE MATHIESON
Why you’re interested in maybe having a quick chat with them, that you are looking to be on the board of that particular organisation, and always, always it needs to be in strict confidence. But, Go to them and say, just 10, 15 minute conversation. Ask, “Can I get a feel for what your experience was on that board?” Build a relationship, at least to begin answering the question for yourself: Do you really want to be on that board? It might be that you, once you start to get some information on. Once you get information about that experience, you might say, “Actually, no, I do not want to be on that board.” There’s, It doesn’t align with who I am.

50:35 SUE MATHIESON
Another thing I have noticed is that, while governance is still very significant for boards, they are also increasingly looking for people with strong networks so they can leverage those relationships more broadly. People that may have some fundraising experience. And it’s, That’s a conversation that I have actually just recently had with a board and it came out of, and this was interesting. My fundraising experience came out of a personal, um, experience that I had. And I can segue into a bit of a story around that, if you like, but…

51:15 JIM BEACH
Just do that, and then we need to wrap it up. So we’re actually getting close to running out of time, I believe. So tell us that story and then we’ll wrap it up.

51:27 SUE MATHIESON
Really quickly, this combines two of my passions: hiking and photography. I had the opportunity to do a big hike in Central Australia, aligned with a fundraising opportunity. I took that on and embraced the fundraising experience. I set up a dinner and had people contribute auction items. At a personal level, that has now given me something to build on because the particular board I am speaking with is looking for that experience. They’re looking for people who can help them from a fundraising perspective because they’re a, that’s a really important component of how they operate. What I am saying to people looking for board appointments is:

52:15 SUE MATHIESON
Do not always get stuck thinking it has to be finance or legal experience. Think more broadly about the experience you can bring in terms of fundraising, marketing, and relationships. That will help as well.

52:28 JIM BEACH
How do we get in touch with you? Find out more, all that, please.

52:33 SUE MATHIESON
Go to my personal website. Sue Mathieson, M-A-T-H-I-E-S-O-N dot com dot A-U. There is a contact tab there. Um, tab there. Click on that, if you’d like to reach out to me. Just put “radio” in the subject line so I know you heard me chatting with Jim. I would love to offer you two complimentary coaching sessions as part of this conversation and support any listener interested in discussing their journey and some of the challenges they are facing. So if you put radio in the subject line and we can connect and go from there.

53:14 JIM BEACH
Fantastic. Sue, thank you so very much for being with us. Great conversation, and I would love to see you in Melbourne soon.

53:22 SUE MATHIESON
That would be amazing. Melbourne’s a pretty good town to visit.

53:27 JIM BEACH
Oh yeah. Maybe we need to invade. We’ll be back tomorrow. Be safe. Take care. Go make a million dollars. Bye now.

53:46 SUE MATHIESON
Thanks, Jim. Thank you.