Episode #34: Sharing your lived experience with others

Fiona Jago is a lived experience facilitator with Resilient Ready, and we are talking about sharing your lived experience with others. So a little bit about Fiona. She’s a former dairy farmer from regional Victoria, who also has experience in the construction industry and has been a small business owner for a fair few decades. A number of years ago, she and her husband Mark, decided on a change. They purchased a caravan park in the western region of the beautiful Kangaroo Island in South Australia. They were there for a number of years running a really successful small business and being a big part of the local community. And then they were impacted by the bushfires that hit Kangaroo Island in 2019 and 2020, which, as you can imagine, change their world. After rebuilding for three years, they decided to sell and move back to regional Victoria to be with family.

So I’d like to start with where we met. I met Fiona in 2022 when I worked with the Kangaroo Island business community over two years during their recovery from the bushfires. The minute I met Fiona, I was hooked. She’s a passionate, smart, small business owner who is someone that every small business person needs to meet and listen to when planning their return to Victoria. I asked Fiona what was next? Well, we’re not ready to retire now, but I’m not really sure was pretty much what she said. And then I asked if she’d be interested in sharing her lived experience with others in small business. To my absolute excitement, she said yes. And here we are today. Fiona is now a fantastic part of the Resilient Ready team, literally jumping into her caravan with Mark of course, and traveling around the country delivering workshops or being a guest speaker to help business people just like her. If you happen to be listening to this podcast and you’re in a business community resilience role or in a business community, make sure you look at the relevant page on a website for more and book Fiona to come and talk to your community too.

Fiona, welcome. I love talking with you.

Renae Hanvin

Okay, now we’ve only got 20 minutes or so, so we have to keep this tight.

1. So let’s start with the introduction, I shared a bit about your journey as a small business person. What do you and Mark love about being in small business?

Fiona Jago

The thing that, we enjoy most about being in small business is being able to make our own decisions and do what do it how we wanna do it, not how someone else wants us to do it.

Renae Hanvin

So very much around that, you know, you are the boss, you do it your way when you wanna do it and you’re not working for someone else.

Fiona Jago

That’s it. Yeah. Having worked for people, you could see the holes in their business, but they didn’t wanna hear about it. And it gets very frustrating. So, if we make a mistake, it’s our own problem, but you try to take those holes away as best you can.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, that very much why I’m in small business as well, basically because I don’t know, I like doing things differently, including disasters, but also, yeah, and then I can own the approach that I take. And I think that’s really important. ’cause a lot of people in small business, you know, you are kind of good at your craft and then you’re sort of accidentally in business. Like, you know, I don’t wake up every morning going, wow, I wanna, you know, sort out, you know, staffing and I want to sort out my insurances. Like I just wanna do great programs that, you know, build resilience. and you’re like a caravan park owner. I’m sure you woke up and you were like, oh, you know, I just wanna serve my customers and have a great experience for them every day. well that’s, that’s my assumption of course. Maybe you did wake up going hoo. What staffing rosters can I tweak today? So as a business person, and you’ve typically operated in regional communities, and you know, I guess your caravan park on Kangaroo Island was probably more remote ’cause it was about 70 kilometer kilometers away from the nearest town.

2. What were the biggest challenges you faced, you know, during disasters running a small business in that kind of regional slash remote community?

Fiona Jago

Our biggest, our biggest, issue was distance. We were living on site post fires and we made that choice to be there on site to be able to A, protect the property, B, we had a lot of wildlife that we were still feeding post fires, and looking after, but also we had the decision to get, get going again. We said Easter, we are going to reopen, however that may look like, but gave us three months to, from when we could start to do any work to Easter, we said, righto, we’re gonna open. So our, our biggest issues were, distance from everyone because people didn’t come our way because there’s nothing left down. There was the assumption. Those who did come our way were just basically sticky noses, wanting to see the devastation and thinking it was okay to enter our property because you know, that’s what you do apparently.

So they become the issues that really start to grate at you is having that, that you became a tourist option in the western end of KI because there were no others, and also then when it came to recovery, getting assistance on what might seem like trivial matters at the time, but they were really important matters. For example, getting our landline back, people go, oh, but you can use the, you can use mobile, that’s fine. You can use mobile if it works. Because a sense of power would go off, we would have no mobile. So 18 months of nagging and annoying until we found out, found the right person to who could make a decision to get a landline back, still came to us with all mobile ideas of how we could fix things. And in the end, we finally got the last 20 kilometers of that copper wire back to our property. So we had a landline, but 18 months of badgering people becomes quite tedious.

Renae Hanvin

And I think, so obviously, you know, you choose to live, so yeah, you know.

Fiona Jago

You choose to live there, you choose.

Renae Hanvin

To live in the middle of nowhere in this, you know, amazingly I love Kangaroo Island, like beautiful place. and I guess the, the costs associated with things, you know, deliveries and you know, the lack of, I know there’s, you know, plane issues and boat issues. So because it’s an, I was an I, you know, well it is an island, so getting onto, you know, that community, et cetera. But I think, you know, there must be so many, and I’m putting a bit of a social capital lens here, I guess in terms of that community, people connection. So being part of a remote and regional community, like you must be really close to the people nearby. So, you know, going through the, the bush fires and then, you know, as part of your recovery, you know, I guess it’s it’s the people as well that are very much sort of keeping you.

Fiona Jago

Yeah. Helping our people. That helped us most were our trades because we were able to get rebuilding quite quickly, which a lot of people couldn’t understand how we got to do that, but we did.

Renae Hanvin

Hey, they hadn’t met Fiona before.

Fiona Jago

So because, you know, within two weeks we’d made a shopping list of what our plumber and electrician needed after we went and saw them on the day. We knew how much we’d lost and had a beer and sat down and went, right, are you ready to having just renovated the whole property, went back to them and said, you ready to go again? Are you ready to go again? Have another beer with them, make your shopping list. So as soon as the fire was classed as being contained and we had power back on the day, we actually made that decision a month down the track to move on to site. We got power back that day. Not that we connecting to anything, but we had power. So we were able to get going quite quickly. But it was having those relationships with the trades, and and even, our suppliers were quite generous to us as well, where we, we bought stuff, they were quite generous towards us. The hardware store gave us a generator, which meant we could live on site because we had power. So it’s having those connections beforehand, having connection with our bank manager as well to get, his sensations on paying loans. It was having a relationship with our account that I could shovel stuff off for him to, to do for us instead of me having to, to do all of that thing. And also being quite, quite good friends with your telephone ’cause you spend all day on that as well.

Renae Hanvin

And of course we need power and mobile access for those.

So now I don’t want to, I mean your story is remarkable and you are, delivering workshops with us. So, but I don’t want this podcast to be about, you know, your experience and your story because I want it to be about how you’re working with me. Obviously, I met you when I was doing some, about 18 months of work with the business community on Kangaroo Island. And I was just like, wow, she’s awesome. And totally, I guess has that amazing mindset of, you know, what your role and responsibility is as a business owner, you know, in a location like Kangaroo Island. So I was really blown away by how I guess prepared and across you really understand your business and understood your business. And so then your recovery, you know, your response and recovery was quite phenomenal in my opinion because you were, you know, 10 steps ahead of the majority of other people in small business. So once you, I think you spent about three years rebuilding and then relocated back to regional Victoria where your family is. And we were talking and I’m like, Hey, wanna come and deliver my workshops because again, I can’t keep up with the demand at the moment. So you’re now working with me as a lived experience facilitator. When you and Mark, your husband, you get into your caravan and you drive around Australia and you visit communities to share your experience.

3. What’s the topic you are most asked to talk about?

Fiona Jago

I have two topics I’m asked to talk about. Everyone know has the reaction of, what was my experience and I’m always quite happy to talk about it, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing what I do with you. So, I was quite clear on that to people. Don’t be offended, ask any question, I’m happy to answer because we wanted, I wanna do what I’m doing to help people not have to learn everything that we had to learn before, during, and after disaster and or interruption because it can be an interruption these days as well. But insurance gets everybody.

Renae Hanvin

Insurance…

Fiona Jago

Insurance freaks everybody out. I’ve had, I had the comment at one, in Queensland was I came along, I saw insurance, thought it was gonna be boring, but how it was different to what I expected.

Renae Hanvin

And it’s kind of funny because I’m the same. So you know, when I got into kind of business resilience and small business community resilience, like I knew nothing about insurance and I’m like, oh mate, like how boring, how dull. And I rang my broker and you know, and we now have a strategy and stuff, but same as you. Like when I was delivering workshops, even before you came on board and you know, you’d go, oh yeah, we’re talking about insurance. And you could see everyone go, oh gosh, like, you know, where’s the drink? Or give something to eat. By the end of it I have them wanting to do insurance review, like catchups, like a wine and policy night. it was amazing the aha moments that we mentioned before of learning from other people, but even the, you know, oh you use here, you know, that person. I didn’t even know they did that. Oh, can I get the number? You know, building the connections, just talking about, I guess, you know, the issues and the challenges that we are facing. You know, insurance is a real, it’s a really good talking point and I guess potential change driver.

Fiona Jago

Absolutely. in the workshops I have presented a lot of them with farming communities. they assume because they’ve got a value of insurance, that that’s what they’ll get paid out if something happens. And when you explain to them that that is underinsured and they will get, if they’re lucky a percentage of that value, that’s when you see the brains go, aha. And then you have five minutes of, oh, what else haven’t I done? What have I gotta cover? What have I missed? What have I done? Oh my goodness. And then I’ll say, you explain to them how difficult under insurance makes claiming full stop again gets them quite involved and brokers as well in a lot of regional areas, brokers are hard to find that are are the right person. And that’s what we always say. Don’t just go for the first person that you talk to. Feel comfortable with them. If you don’t get a good feeling, it’s okay not to deal with them. It look around and it doesn’t have to be in your neighborhood if you can’t find one from South Australia. We dealt with our broker in Victoria. We didn’t go local.

Renae Hanvin

And I think that’s, again, it comes back to that sort of social capital and people connections component. Like, you know, I mean I don’t know what small business person wakes up in the morning and goes, I’m gonna build a relationship with my insurance provider today. Not too many I don’t think.

Fiona Jago

I have a really good relationship with my insurance provider. We have very interesting conversations.

Renae Hanvin

Do you know what, me too, like my, again, I’ve, no, I give anyone his number ’cause he is amazing mainly because he’ll also tell you or tell me if he’s not the right person to help. ’cause I think in the notion, and I don’t want this chat to be just about insurance, but I think, you know, as a small business person building connections with your suppliers and your insurance brokers and that is, you know, hey they’re in business too. So, you know, you might as well, you know, have fun along the way, which, you know, is all why we’re in business really.

Fiona Jago

Well. That’s sort of how I’ve always dealt with my business. If you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, exactly. Although sometimes, sometimes you’ve gotta bang your head against a brick wall just to kind of, you know, get through some challenging times. But yeah, no, a hundred percent.

Fiona Jago

Instead of taking insurance as being the necessary evil, make it something that you go, hang on, it’s actually gonna work for me because you just never know.

Renae Hanvin

Well that’s it. I mean, you know, there are so many challenges that we are facing in today’s new era of, you know, natural hazards and other types of disrupt disruptions. I mean we we’re getting bombarded left right and center by, you know, impacts big and small. Now I just wanna say at this point, ’cause we have talked a little bit about insurance that we are, just to be very clear, you and I are not qualified insurance experts. We are only only small business people, with lived experience of running a business. And I think the thing for me too is that, I often use the analogy of, you know, when it comes to insurance, it is kind of complex for small businesses and it kind of needs to be. And if you think about it, like I was mentioning before, like, you know, I wouldn’t cut my own hair because oh my gosh, I wouldn’t be able to leave the house for a very long time.

So, you know, your hairdresser is a small business person who’s an expert in that space. So if you’re looking at components of your business that is a bit complex, you know, like insurance, like go to an expert. So either find a retailer, but obviously if you want a bit more personal help, I know there are agents, and find a broker. So there’s the Insurance Council of Australia or the National Insurance Brokers Association that can help you find a broker, and ask people around you in small business who they use. Because getting that, you know, absolute help is, is really quite, quite critical.

Fiona Jago

And talk to similar businesses to you as well, ’cause they might have something covered that you haven’t even thought of. Yeah. And vice versa.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean I learned something from you every day. What did I learn today I learned about you need to include in your business, replacement insurance cleanup. Like I think you were mentioning that about 80 grand. You had a cleanup cost of about 80 grand or something that I think in this situation the government covered, but as we know, the government can’t, you know, save us all. so you know, who’d have thought about adding an extra 50, 60, 80 grand to clean up like?

Fiona Jago

Throw a bit of asbestos in there. Everything just adds zeros.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, no, let’s not throw asbestos in. But I guess we don’t know where that is until it’s too late either.

Fiona Jago

That’s it. That’s it.

Renae Hanvin

So do you reckon, last question about insurance, because let’s be honest, it’s probably getting a bit boring for some. Like what I’m really trying to do is make, you know, the notion of insurance and how you can afford insurance and what you need to insurance just part of everyday people in small business like just, that’s just what they know and that’s what they do, like I know absolutely.

4. Do you reckon you and I can actually make like, insurance and small businesses kind of mainstream or the thing like from a business, small business perspective?

Fiona Jago

Absolutely.

Renae Hanvin

That’s so dull and boring, but I’ve got this like mission to do it. Should we do it?

Fiona Jago

Yeah, absolutely. Because everyone you talk to about insurance at the end of the day they go, oh, that was really cool. It wasn’t boring.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah

Fiona Jago

People you talk to the better it is.

Renae Hanvin

And you don’t know what you don’t know. And so my problem at the moment too is we need to have the same conversations at the government level because having more business people take up insurance because they can’t afford it or ’cause they’re getting the right amounts and the right types is good for government as well. But I need to, we need to change the mindset and the government, side of the fence as to the value of helping small business people think differently and do differently when it comes to insurance.

Fiona Jago

And have the value in the small business, not just from an employment part of the, the coin, but how they economically help whole communities and getting that into the government is a big thing as well.

Renae Hanvin

So true. And as you know, the work we are doing and with Professor Daniel Aldrich and obviously when we were working with the Kangaroo Island community, Daniel came to Kangaroo Island and he came all the way to your, your rebuilding of the caravan park, and had a fantastic walk around to hear your lived experience of everything from, you know, your engagement with emergency services to the rebound, the rebuild to you know, everything from telco who you were connected in and whatever. And it was very, very clear and I, I use it and we use it at Resilient Ready, obviously with your, blessing and involvement that, you know, when we think about social connections, so sorry, social capital. So people connections, obviously you are an extraordinary connector. but if you think about the social infrastructure side as well, so the places where people connect on the western side of Kangaroo Island, basically the only place to connect was the caravan park.

Fiona Jago

That was all that was left to connect with. Yeah.

Renae Hanvin

So small, you know, before, so before the disaster as well. So you know, the places like caravan parks and pubs and libraries, like these social infrastructure places really, really are critical before, but also during and after the disasters.

Fiona Jago

Absolutely. You became, you become the mental health people without even knowing that’s what you’ve become. You become the, that people come and ask you how come you’ve got been able to do something. So you’re sharing how that has changed as well so that you can help others move forward too because getting people back around you is absolutely, it becomes a big part of your own mental health as well as yes you’re going ahead but you need people around you and, and have those conversations. We got very good at having lots of conversations with tradies, not just our own but everyone else’s as well.

Renae Hanvin

You wouldn’t wanna have a conversation with you and Mark, Fiona.

Fiona Jago

I was mum to some of them.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. But I think too in the notion of, again, the role of small businesses in communities, so, you know, and you’ve got so much lived experience in this space, but it’s, you know, there’s economic contribution to communities because it’s, you know, they employ people. You are bringing money into the region and bringing, you know, people into the region. You’re selling products and services, some of them as essential. I know in your rebuild of the caravan park, the petrol station was not rebuilding. So you took on as a I I’d say partly a business decision. Obviously you wouldn’t wanna lose money in it, but more so probably a social decision.

Fiona Jago

It was more a social requirement for everyone expects there to be a fuel station around the corner now.

Renae Hanvin

Amazing. And there wasn’t gonna be, but you took it on in your business operations and I mean you, again, you probably didn’t wake up one morning and go, oh, I’m gonna be a petrol station owner. But…

Fiona Jago

Not with what I know now.

Renae Hanvin

Well I know the community is, is very, very grateful for you in that sense. So in terms of the workshops that we are delivering, and I know, you know, you’ve been doing them in Queensland and in fact they’re inviting you back and we’ve got lots coming up around. We’ve done lots around New South Wales and Victorian what not.

5. What are the main, I guess what are the main questions in terms of your lived experience that people wanna know?

Fiona Jago

People wanna know how what made us decide to rebuild.

Renae Hanvin

Yep.

Fiona Jago

Is a big one. They go around about how they’re gonna ask it, but that’s generally how come what made us build back again. And that was, we had two reasons. One, it was our superannuation policy. Our second reason was, well three reasons actually. Second reason was we had too much to walk away from. We had something left and three, I don’t like to walk away.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Fiona Jago

Yeah. Basically. And so that’s why we set ourselves a goal of we would be open for Easter. Nice. Waste of time because Covid hit. But anyhow, that’s another story.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Fiona Jago

So you have to give yourself goals, which is what we did. My two IC sometimes wasn’t overly enthusiastic, but we got him there eventually.

Renae Hanvin

But you are such a doer, Fiona, you’re such a do that and Mark, mark comes along on the journey ’cause it’s gonna be a fun one. So can I ask you though, on that point, so again talking about, you know, sharing your lived experience with others, how, I mean, again, disasters and disruptions impact people in many different ways. So you know, what might be right for you is not right for everyone. So I don’t want to I guess have this podcast with people going Oh, that’s the right way to ask people that have been, you know, impacted. ’cause there’s not always one right way to ask people, but how, like what, what from your experience, like what did you, like what are you happy about people asking you or do you prefer them just to ask what they’re really wanting or to kind of gently go, you know, around the sides and sort of, you know…

Fiona Jago

Well, we learn there’s two types of people. They’re the people that are genuinely interested and then there’s the people who think they just need to say something.

Renae Hanvin

Ah…

Fiona Jago

If you’re a person who just thinks you need to say something, don’t say it. Yeah. Because it comes out a little bit wrong and that is one of the most mental affecting responses you get. Yeah. we had a lot of, we had a lot of people who come through and say, oh, you didn’t get burnt, and you’re like, have a look. Everything’s new. And so that when people have that response, and we’ve been to a lot of other bushfire affected areas since we’ve left KI and we don’t mention it, you can see that pe you get worn down by it after three or four years you’ve moved on.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Fiona Jago

People might not have, but we’ve moved on and it becomes, it keeps dragging you back when you, it’s a different thing if they come and ask. It’s great to see that you’ve, you’ve, rebuilt hope that when I came, things like that. That’s great. You’ve noticed that actually everything is new.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Fiona Jago

Yeah. Not, not just go, because I worked really hard for three years to rebuild everything I didn’t want in three years time to go, oh, you didn’t get burn.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, no.

Fiona Jago

Because it’s a real kick in the guts when you are sitting there going, trying to smile at people going, want a little look around.

Renae Hanvin

I just wanna flick you in the head with a luck of band. Exactly.

Fiona Jago

Can I jump the counter and slap you?

Renae Hanvin

It is. Yeah. And I think too, again, a lot of people come into, you know, communities post disruptions and it’s, it’s about them more than it’s about the people who’ve experienced it. Yeah. I wanna just mention quickly too, because you’ve been delivering, we’ve been working with the ORCRA which is the Omeo Regions Community Recovery group, but they are in the process of reforming into something different, which is very exciting. and when we got this project, it was to go out and talk to six communities or six towns in the Omeo region in beautiful Victoria. And as soon as we got this project, I’m like, I’m Fiona’s going, Fiona is going because I obviously have a lot of experience and I can go and chat and you know, I’ve been impacted by different types of disasters and disruptions of course, but, you know, sending you in. Oh, how good have those conversations been where you’ve had other community people who’ve had their own impacts and you can just connect on that like, you know, very alike level.

Fiona Jago

Absolutely. It’s being able toI always, whenever I present to a group like that, I always say, well, only being a mainly farming community, I mentioned that I’ve been a farmer born and bred farmer, being in business also been affected by the fires and how we’ve come through it so that they know we’re not talking. I’m not going in there to tell ’em how to suck eggs basically. and that’s when the conversation start and had some amazing conversations at Benambra, that it was quite touching actually what I got told at Benambra by people who have been through more than one disaster and they just keep repeating unfortunately in that area and finding out their change, the changes over the years, how communication becomes less deferred, more we move forward in time.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Fiona Jago

From outside entities. It’s been quite amazing to hear that how things used to work, to how things work now. and it’s also shows how tight knit communities like that really come together and, and stick together and keep doing so.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. And I think that, again, sharing lived experience and I know there’s, a lot of work going on at the moment with different, universities and whatnot about that kind of recovery sort of focus, and capturing, you know, the knowledge and learnings and I know, oh gosh, every time I go into a few meetings with certain types of people in government and academia, I’m like, Fiona’s coming. They’re like, we need, we need Fiona. And again, you know, really excited about the strategic work that we are going be doing together at Resilient Ready. Also about the social, capital mapping, work that we are doing, which again, is open for other communities, if they wanna do. And again, these workshops that we’re delivering for the business communities. Fiona, I could talk to you all day, but I always finished with my final question.

Fiona Jago

The two things I’d like to be done differently in the disaster space is communication. Communication is a big one. And…

Renae Hanvin

What do you mean by communication? What do you mean?

Fiona Jago

Communication through prior and post disaster in Assume don’t make us that Emergency services community groups. Everyone who comes to assist doesn’t assume that you’ll always be on their doorstep.

Renae Hanvin

Got it. Yep.

Fiona Jago

Because where we were, it was too hard. So if we had have had a bit more communication coming into us rather than us huffing to look for it would’ve been amazing.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. So probably communications and engagement there. So having a two way kind of relationship in that sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. And number two?

Fiona Jago

Respect.

Renae Hanvin

Oh, what do you mean

Fiona Jago

Respect from that? Everyone respects each other, whether no matter whether you’re the top politician or the bottom person on the, in the community rangs, if you’ve got that feeling, respect each other.

Renae Hanvin

That’s so I think it’s, it’s an, it’s an interesting answer actually. Not what I was expecting from you. No, but I think you are summing up quite a bit, quite a key. Oh my God. We might, might need another podcast. Just Yeah.

Fiona Jago

It’s a whole different.

Renae Hanvin

I think no, you’re, I think you’re summing up a kind of a notion of the shared responsibility issue that I’ve always had a bit of a concern with in the sense that we all have a role to play and in fact it shouldn’t be a power play or a, you know. Yeah. It’s an interesting, we might have to, we might have to come back to that one, but, yeah.

Fiona Jago

It’s, it’s having that respect that everyone has their own story to tell not everyone’s story is different and respect that difference because a cookie cutter approach doesn’t fix all.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. Well that’s, yeah, very, very true. Clearly another podcast has to be had, sorry.

Fiona Jago

That was a bit deep, wasn’t it?

Renae Hanvin

Very deep, yeah, deep for our normal conversations. Now I’m gonna be thinking about that. Fiona, a massive thank you to Fiona Jago, who’s now a lived experience facilitator with Resilient Ready. And we’ve been talking about sharing your lived experience with others. Thanks so much, Fiona. Thanks a lot.

Fiona Jago

Pleasure. Anytime.