Why Fear Means You're Growing, with Kthryn Bondoc

Catherine Tom Hitchcock, how are you? Well thank you, how are you? Not too bad, that’s a big smile. I’m not too sure if that’s excitement or nerves. Oh definitely excitement. Done, oh okay, we’d like to hear that, we’d like to hear that. Nerves which are like to dispel really quickly. I know you had some technical difficulties as we were trying to fix this up. It’s always fine when things like that happen, it bothers people, gets in the way a little bit, it makes us a bit flustered but I forgive you. You sort those out swimmingly. Wow thank you, I did have lots of support from my husband so we’re here now ready to go. Yeah it’s recorded, it’s been noted you’ve earned yourself some brownie points with your hubby as well.

So, well I can put this on, you and I don’t really know each other too well which is quite common on these episodes. I like to get to know people whilst we’re recording to be honest with you. So maybe give us a little bit of a snapshot on who you are. Wow. Big questions and starties. So I am based here in Western Sydney and I’m passionate about people. So I started my early career supporting general practices and allied health businesses in Western Sydney and slowly evolved into the community services sector, eventually landing in aged care. And I’m now an aged care consultant. So I’m passionate about community and out supporting people throughout their lives and offering whatever I have in terms of my gifts, knowledge and networks to support that area and that group.

Okay. All right. So to recap, anybody listening to this who may be even outside of Australia as well, you are a business owner? I am, yes. So I have several businesses actually. My key business is an aged care consulting business. So boutique business that supports small to medium businesses in the care sector, whether that’s aged care or disability. I also had a property development business, which is a family endeavor with my brother and my parents. And I’m shortly launching a new business with my husband. So stay tuned with that. Oh, can you give us any spoilers for what you’re doing? So he is a manned pilot. So he can fly planes and teach people to fly planes. And he’s also a drone pilot.

And so his team are the ones that do the big drones homes for vivid. Um, and he does a lot of work in that area. It’s emerging. It’s exciting. So I’m, I’m really happy to be involved. There we are. We need to try and link that up with aged care somewhere down a line. Exactly. I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way. Exactly. Well, we’re recording it here. So we’ll hold you accountable and your hubby. What’s his name? Aston. Aston, there we are. Aston, hold us in a, a accountable for that one. So, okay. All right. Well, listen, the business owners I speak to. tend to have a similar haircut to me which is a sign of stress, overwhelming and bored life, stupidity, or glutton for punishment. But you look smiling, you’re happy, you’re healthy, you must be doing something right.

Oh, thank you. That’s very kind of you. First of all, I’m Filipino so we age very slowly. I get lots of sleep and I’m a Christian so I give all of my cares to God. I’m quite happy all the time so that helps. There we are. Good, good. And so you’re from the Philippines? Yes. llama. Okay. How long have you been in Australia for? Oh, look, I was one and a half when we migrated and I’m really reconnecting with my roots at the moment. My parents retired back several years ago now. And so I’m learning more about the culture and looking to do more work in the Philippines to support the local communities as well. Yeah, good. Okay. So you didn’t need to worry about the cultural shift too much because you’re indoctrinated Aussie Yeah.

almost immediately. I definitely have the accent. Sometimes people don’t realise that I’m Filipino once they meet me. They’re like, oh, okay. I didn’t know. Nice, nice. Okay. And as you started off your career, what did that look like? What did you want to be? What a cool question. It’s really interesting. I’ve got a passion for supporting vulnerable children as well. So when I first started out, I actually wanted to work for DOCS, which is the Department of Community Services services at the time, supporting children who are in foster care and being a social worker. It actually took a very long time for them to get back to me after I graduated from uni so I accidentally ended up in the health field. But I feel like maybe that was the plan of God and instead I’ve built a whole career in that space to support services and the greater community in that space. I’m still really passionate about that area at the moment. I’m volunteering with the Wesley Mission in the aunties and uncles program. So I’ve got a beautiful niece that I support. She’s in the foster care system. And I encourage anyone that has a heart for children. It’s a really easy way to support the community. You know, you just get involved and you can take them out once a month just to hang out in the community and give them an opportunity to see life in a different perspective, a different type of family, a different background and to provide extra support because every child needs a village to help raise them.

Yes, I hear that. And I think, I think, commendable what you’re doing. I think And you started off by talking that you’re a people person. And a lot of people say that. But I used to call myself a people person until I started communicating with them.

And I got cynical. But no, we asked people, personalized people wouldn’t be doing these, you know? But quite a lot of people say it, but it’s not necessarily always true. But you can tell what people say is true by their actions. And I think if you’re volunteering, things like that and your business is people, person centric, then you live and believe in your words. She’s commendable. Oh, thanks, Tom. I think I’ve been on a journey in the last few months in terms of how do I impact the world and make it a better place? There are so many things happening around every time you open up your social media or watch the news. It’s just heartbreaking to see. And in my prayer life, I’ve been working out, well, what do I do in this space? And I really feel that all I need to do is help my own community, look after my friends and my family and build that own network or helping people through my business communities, that is enough to create a trigger effect to make the world a better place. And I think we’re not here to change the whole world, not everyone of us can be a world changer, but we can change the world that we’re in. So I’m really grateful that I have an opportunity to look after the people that are in touch in my life. And I look forward to touching more lives through my businesses.

And that resonates with myself because we talk a lot about our immediate environment, our own little worlds and have a legacy where we leave it in a better place than we found it in. But it also then goes back to a business mindset where we can only focus on what we can control. Yes, yes, she’s heard on the news and I think news has always been, you know, sort of fear mongering, warmongering, it always is doing good because that’s what sells, it’s what people, people like the drama, so there’s always been the case. But it’s quite easy to get disillusioned with that, but we can’t control those things. But the little bits we can control then it’s good to take those steps, take those actions I’d say. Yeah I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think you can spend a lot of time worrying about everything else and instead it’s better to put your energy on the things that you can influence and change and be grateful for the lives that you touch and the opportunity that you can be a light to someone that needs help in a time of trouble. Okay all right so what come first, the property business or the aged care business? Wow, what a great question.

I actually don’t think they come first, rather they alternate in priorities. So at the moment, construction business, property development is the priority because we close a project in February. So it’s a 22 room new generation boarding house of which we’re going to lease to a disability provider in the area. So we’re excited to be able to provide housing options for people who need it, working with a great provider that’s funded by the government and doing great work both in aged care and disability. So that’s the current focus. In aged care, as you know, there’s a lot happening with aged care reform and there are a lot of businesses out there that need support in navigating this minefield and it’s my passion to support those businesses because of my background, because I have something that I can already give.

So I’m really excited to do more work in that space. This year, I’m actually a part of of the Sydney aged care network and we hold quarterly networking events to help professionals in the space learn more, connect in network with each other. So I look forward to doing more in that space. OK, all right. So it’s nice to hear because you’ve kind of omitted that. So your property development is one thing. But when we think property development or perception of it, it feels monetary. It feels it gets there for capital gains and what have you, which all businesses are in many respects, don’t get me wrong. But by the time you mentioned it, it then looked straight back to what your passion play is, is helping the community and what have you.

So it serves you well to get that out as well. Which suburb is that in Sydney? It’s in Cardiff, which is Lake Macquarie. So it’s kind of New South Wales. It’s nice up that way. Yes, beautiful area. I’ve really emerging space as well. And I’ll connect that into my care for family and making a difference as well. The reason I got into property development was as an aged care professional, I could see that my parents were aging. They were going to need a lot of help and support in their older years. So I decided more than 10 years ago to find a way to fund their retirement and talk after them. They’re migrants from the Philippines as we’ve already discussed and so they only had time to really build for themselves and build a little bit for us.

But to look after them in their aging years was a high priority. So my brother and I actually started this development project to help fund them. So we’re really pleased that we’ve been able to take a very small parcel of land, less than a thousand square metres, and to turn it into something or an asset that we can hold for many years that will fund them in their retirement years. So it’s kind of the, I’m really grateful that it’s all coming together and continues to connect, I suppose. But so it’s exciting. That’s good. Well, good luck with that. Keep us posted. Thank you. I’ll see how that’s going and maybe anybody watching this, they can see in the comments when he’s live, if they want to reach out and have some more information on it.

Let’s talk a bit more about aged care then. So let’s imagine you’ve got that sounds the wrong terminology but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s an agnostic audience. Okay, you’ve got the perfect client who happens to be listening to this in the realms of aged care. So we’ve got someone who knows your sector and what you do. Let’s go into a little bit more information about specifically what it is that you do in aged care and how you can help those people. Yeah, sure. So my career has been in larger age care businesses that have functioned in the millions of dollars in terms of their funding. So as a kin care for a while, I was at Australian home care, now Clara, I was at Anglican Sydney. And so I have a knowledge and understanding of how the larger businesses function in this space. And many of the people who come into the age care sector are small businesses or people who are passionate, they’re not for profits or smaller organizations that want to make a difference. So what I’m offering through my aged care consulting business is that knowledge and how to manage as if they were a large organization. How do they build structures?

How do they run compliance? How do they look at business development? How do they train staff? So I’m offering my knowledge and experience from these organizations that were established to care for people and taking those corporate learnings, those learnings around systems that work to help things function and to help people grow. So it’s been wonderful to do that over the last couple of years. My business is only less than two years old and I’ve had the privilege of working with many organisations to build new products, new services, meet compliance requirements and even prepare for registration. Okay so do you feel that maybe aged care itself as a sector, as an industry, as a business is a rising tide? There is a huge demand just because of the number of people who are aging in Australia. There’s a lot of international interest in this space because of the funding allocated to it, billions of dollars in poor in. And so what I’ve seen in the last five years is many large organisations and even international private equity companies coming into this space, going, how can we build and make money in this space? What that’s done is that’s attracted big consultants from the big four, a lot of really high profile people into to this space.

And what I want to do is to be able to support the people who are on the ground that want to make a difference but don’t have access to all of these big resources and funding. When I talk to clients who are aging, all they want is a familiar face and someone to pick up their phone call at the end of the day and larger organizations really struggle to create that really small community connection. And so corporates try to create a small feel in a big environment, but I actually think there is a space for these smaller organisations to take care of people within their own patch. And so I’ve seen many successful local models where there are case managers and small business owners that look after people successfully in a smaller space and that’s the group that I want to help.

Yep, love it. Okay. So again, that resonates for myself because almost every week, there’s in the startup scale up space and we I love the idea of being able to eyeball and shake hands with a business owner who does make those decisions and is trying to build life themselves but for those around them as well. With the bigger conglomerates it has a very much a different feel, doesn’t mean what they’re doing is bad but we can have less impact. Yeah. You know we’re a drop in the ocean. Yes. And also that has less appeal to my personality so it resonates with me what you’re saying there. What do you think about the correlation between the NDS and aged care? Okay, so the ministers are the same. Do you think, do you predict maybe there’s gonna be an amalgamation in the future?

I have heard that many times and I’m starting to see more and more alignment in terms of policy, in structure, in even the people that are working in the two different sectors. So I think there are lessons to be learned with what’s happened in the NDIS in the aged care space, but there are also lessons to be learned from aged care into the NDIS space. So one of the things that I’ve been doing is helping NDIS providers understand age care, understand why it’s different, because there’s this desire for disability providers to move into age care, because there’s a great opportunity right now. And they think, well, I’ve got care workers and it’s care, so it’ll be the same, but it’s actually quite different.

It’s different in terms of what the everyday Australian expects, because it’s an older funding line and there is a history to it. So working with NDIS providers to help them understand the thinking how the government has formed, the policies, the funding and how that’s worked in aged care helps, I think, business owners navigate that. So I don’t have a crystal ball on what will happen into the future, but I am an advocate that there are lessons to be learned on both sides and working together will be really important. Yeah. Okay. That’s a very diplomatic answer. A good answer and diplomatic. So, you know, I like to put myself out there and throw my crystal ball out there when people ask I’m like, yeah, all day long, it’s gonna happen.

Just matter of time, you know. And if I’m wrong, I’m not the expert. Yeah. If I’m wrong, yeah, hold this. Probably my background in corporate though. Yes, yes, the corporate does change your behavior somewhat as a whole different ball game. That’s the perk of being in your own business so you can hang your hat on something and it’s your decision, you just go with it and float with it, you know. That’s true. So maybe what’s your advice? Let’s say, we can’t really talk about the immigration thing because you’re too young. But what would be your advice to someone who’s essentially in tune with their passion, their passion play, what will get some salivating, what will get them interested in getting out of bed and doing some work, okay?

But turning that into a business, okay? So making that decision to come away from the safety net of having a job, returning that passion into business. What would be your advice to those people? my advice is just do it. Doing it for myself is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Making that decision and stepping out and just doing it has been an incredible adventure. It’s been freeing in terms of my mind and understanding how the world works, freeing in terms of seeing what opportunities there are. And it’s been a huge, I think, a character building process to help me to really think about what I want in my life, what I wanna do and then back it. because there’s no safety net around that.

You really have to back yourself. But I think that making that decision and stepping out is a form of freedom that you probably already desire. Like there’s something inside you that wants this and anything that creates fear is probably what you need to step into, right? That’s what they tell you. So if it’s scary to you, all the more reason to just jump out and do it, take the steps, come and network with us at these events and learn from business owners who are already doing it. Look at how amazing their lifestyles are that you have the freedom to choose. I love the fact that I can go to my childcare centre and see my son on these events that are midweek and I don’t have to seek permission that I can go on holidays and do working holidays while I can spend time with my family.

So it’s the most freeing thing I’ve ever done. And so my advice is just do it. Don’t be afraid, you’ll work it out back yourself. Yeah, love it, love it, hopefully. But you know what? Anybody listening to this that takes that advice and you start to bear some fruit, come back and let us know. I want to turn around and say this is what your conversation has created. We’ve created this business, it’s done this and that’ll be fantastic. Okay, all right, but that’s pretty much us, Catherine. Okay, anybody who listens to this that wants to reach out to you on any of the topics that you’ve approached, what would be the best route for them to make contact with you? Plenty of ways. So I’m quite active on LinkedIn. You can look at my business, Aegis care partners. I’ve got a website, I post blogs every week or two, and I’m also active on social media. I’m on Instagram, Facebook, I’m still working on the TikTok because you know, getting my faith on video is something that I’m personally working on at the moment, which is why I’m here today, Tom stepping out and trying something courageous and different. So I’d love to hear from you. If you are a property developer, happy to connect you into the networks that I run in that space. If you’re an aged care or disability person, happy to connect you into the networks in that space as well. Love it I reckon there’s lots of value to all of that I know we’re connected on LinkedIn so there’s definitely value to that in itself so I think lovely chatting with you and thanks a lot for your time today. Thank you so much for having me Tom take care.

You’re welcome. Hello again it is I am Mr Purple thanks again for watching this video if you like my videos we like what we try to do here please subscribe if you haven’t done it already. The other thing that’s very popular right now is the t-shirts, the Mr Purple T-Shirts. There’s lots of people wearing these at the moment. You can grab yours on our website, copy this link below. So once again, thanks for listening. We love your feedback. Engage with us and speak soon.