STEM and advocating for girls with Dr Dharmica Mistry

Episode - Dharmica Mistry (EDITED)

Mon, Mar 18, 2024 1: 26PM • 36:50

Mon, Mar 18, 2024 1: SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Mon, Mar 18, 2024 1: love, science, life, stem, marine science, people, years, business, met, great, school, lovely, startup, wanted, talk, connect, incredible, doctor, mystery, med tech

00: 01

00: Do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell show, a place where we talk about living a life you love now, I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world. And now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure to it's possible and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams to create a life you love until you get now don't wait for a time and or someday in the future. I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, wins the challenges and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01: 03

01: I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land waterways and skies where I work live. Listen, learn and play. From here on you can bear country and from wherever you are listening. I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01: 26

01: Welcome to the podcast today I'm delighted to introduce you to Dr Dharma current mystery. She is a founder chief scientist, scientific officer, health technology commercialization expert, impact driven scientist and stem and diversity advocate. I mean, talk about accomplished. based in Sydney I met Tamika through a mutual friend and have just been astounded over the years by what she has created. I love her approach to life, her approach to business, her approach to work and her approach to advocacy, diversity and showing women what is really possible especially young women. So just a little bit more about Danica before she shares her incredible story. Dr. dama chemistry is an Australian impact driven scientist and entrepreneur. She is the co founder and ex chief scientist of bee cow diagnostics, and previous head of med tech and biotech of Australia's pioneer deep tech incubator Socata innovations. She spent over a decade taking a research discovery through to commercialization, developing a safe cost effective blood tests for brain breast cancer detection, and building national and international collaborations. I just her amazing, amazing contributions to science have led her to winning a number of awards, including the New South Wales Young Women of the Year award in 2016. To read dharmik, his impressive and full bio, please head to the shownotes. But for now, let's jump into the conversation. I'm just blown away by what's possible and have always had the most fascinating conversations. So please enjoy hearing from Dr. Dharma chemistry.

03: 17

03: Welcome to the podcast. Dhammika mystery. Thank you Mr. So lovely to be here. Thanks for having me. It's been a long time coming. I had a whole other podcast that I wanted to get you on at seven episodes.

03: 31

03: So we're up to like, eight, and we've got this. So yes, we do. We're here. We're here. And we're here now. And it's been a little bit of a journey. But it's great to be here. I know. We said it's been three years since I saw your spin but the beauty of online is, you know keeping tabs and but then getting to have the fun thing of you know, I'm basically going to learn as the audience learns about what's been happening on the journey but let's start with in your words, who are you? Oh, okay, well, I'm Dr. Donna chemistry. I am an impact driven scientist. That's what I like to call myself because I love impact and I love science and I love doing those things together where I can

04: 09

04: I just have a huge love for STEM obviously, you know, bringing that to audiences and people and younger generations because I just feel like it's our secret superpower when you have you know think you can't do much in the world but you can through things like stem so for me, that's who I am. Aside from that. I'm also a mom

04: 31

04: and a human being who loves food art reading and dancing when I can. And I totally bonded with you because we met through

04: 41

04: our friend Jess. Yeah, she because you are of Indian origin, or heritage. And I don't know if you're wearing anything that day but I just basically gravitate to. I'm from the South Asian content continent and I just love watching your fashions and

05: 00

05: You have such a great fashion sense. And I'm always

05: 04

05: well, that's the thing I didn't know then how Indian you were inside as well.

05: 09

05: Oh my gosh, wow, this lady knows more than me about India and has probably been there more than me. But you've got the outfits the the attitude to get my

05: 22

05: nada as in, you know that that beautiful spirit of acceptance and learning and and that's always nice when you're an immigrant because you feel like you've seen a bad look. I just Well, that's honestly I mean, I'm not immigrant but when I go to India, I feel like, I'll come in and they don't say, come to my house, they say come home. And you know, like, I just feel so welcomed and accepted. And I recently got to take some friends

05: 49

05: to meet colleagues, and they're now working together, which is amazing. But we went to the home and had tea and I'm just like, this is the India I wanted you to see. Like, yeah, multimedia like a TT Devo. Bhava like guest is God, you know, just to really experience and they wonderful in the hotels, and they're wonderful guides and all that sort of stuff. But if you have the opportunity, and someone invites you into an Indian home here, like in Australia, or in India or anywhere, Indian hospitality is just like second to none. We love to feed nobody to sit with it, perhaps Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. Love a festival. Love a festival of a holiday celebration, love a wedding, the whole lot. The whole year is just kind of pulling it all together back to back, you probably get to celebrate every day, which is a lovely, cultural thing to have. So yes, I was very drawn to you by that. But also then I was like, This chick is so cool. And so smart. Like we just talked for like five minutes, but off off air. And I'm like, You're so like, you're just changing the world. And it's amazing. And so when we met you were in your business. Yeah, I was developing a blood test for breast cancer detection, which was my, my big highlight of my career and something that I got to do it for over 10 years and discovery and bringing it to life. And it was a big part of who I was. Yeah, that was my jam at the time. When I met you. I just You just say it so casually. And even I just feel like it's like this thing with Ross Geller even though you are a real doctor, I didn't say Doctor Tomica Doctor rustichella. Doctor dama chemistry that doctor like How long were you at uni for?

07: 30

07: Not I didn't do it all back to back. So I did my undergrad, which was actually a bachelor of science with a major in microbiology, which is the study of bacteria, virus and funghi. And I loved it, love microbiology.

07: 44

07: But then I did honors for another year. And then I went off to go and work. And that's when I made this discovery while I was in another company. And my mentor and boss at the time was like you really should consider doing a PhD. And I was like, No, thank you. That sounds lovely. But I'm okay. You know, I was in short at the time. But then I made this discovery. And I was kind of like, yeah, I should do this. And I'm interested in it. And I was so hardcore on getting it, you know, out there in the world, potentially, or it had legs. So I wanted to try. So therefore I went back and did my PhD at that point in my life, which was just about a year or so out of

08: 23

08: finishing my honours. But yeah, so I was at uni for my PhD, probably three or four years. Wow. But I was working in the startup as well at the same time. So it was a startup like I just think we think of startups and tech and I'm catching up with a friend. He's got a start up today, but we tend to get startup is like yet apps basically. But you know us with it's a medical startup. So it's like, quite a it's just such a world? I don't know. That's okay, startups is one and in the medical arena, there's just so much stuff going on that laymen's don't know about? Absolutely. It's a whole industry of its own and look, to be fair, that was in 2009, and 2010. And the word startup and all of that community didn't really exist. We were just called a biotech company, a small biotech company or an SME back then, and I really didn't even it didn't occur to me myself that I was in a startup, because that wasn't the terminology used. And a lot of the people in that space were highly experienced a different sort of,

09: 29

09: I guess, there weren't a lot of young people trying to attack these sorts of things. And I was quite insecure about that, because I was 22 and I just finished and most people do postdocs, and they do research and they become professors and or they may stay in academia industry was kind of the dark side.

09: 44

09: And so at that age, you know, not having published a ton of papers and

09: 51

09: it was kind of like you're gonna let go of this and go and do something different. And I did, because like I said, at the very start, I'm impact driven. So for me

10: 00

10: It was kind of like, oh, well, if this has some impact, then I should just race it out until it gets to the end and see how far I can go.

10: 08

10: So the community of startup and med tech has come a long way since then. And the thing is, we kind of have to look at med tech, med, tech, biotech, all of the sciences, all of the STEM subjects, is usually encompassed by a word called Deep tech. And deep check is where technology takes a long time to get to market a lot of money. Usually, it has approvals and regulations that govern how you get to market. And so it's differentiates itself from tech, as in apps and things by being something that requires a lot of scrutiny, and a lot of years to get there. Yeah. And I'm gonna like, go back to basics here and test my own knowledge. Because for a long time, I was like STEM, STEM, STEM, science, technology, engineering, mathematics. Perfect. Yay.

10: 58

10: A friend who runs a company in it because of you. I was like, I know what STEM means is that you might have heard of called stem punk. Ah, they go into schools and,

11: 10

11: you know, especially strong girls, but they go and deliver programs about STEM in in schools and sort of increase that appetite. Yes, exactly. And that's the thing, it's just about an ad, I've done a few of those sorts of things where I can and where I've been invited, because it's so important. And I think it's not about sort of saying, waltzing around saying, This is what science is. And this is how we do science. It's more about, here's all the fun stuff that you can actually do. You know, no matter what kind of person you are, you could be in textiles. And you could be in sea life and animals. And you can be in the area that I'm in, which is biologies, and physiologies. You know that there are so many avenues for young girls and boys to apply themselves and find creativity in science, I think we forget how creative science can be, because it really is about experimenting and figuring things out. And same with STEM all of the sense. And when the four of those disciplines come together, it's quite magical, because you need each other, you know, I develop a blood test for breast cancer without an engineering and software engineering and, and the maths behind some of the steps you do and all of those things, you need those people to develop solutions with you. So it's very cross disciplinary as well. I think, look, you know, one of the great cultural things, you've heard of layers, like Big Bang Theory, and like making science cool, but also, it's funny now coming to you and I both have children, yes, you know, started to get these like ads popping up. And I very much I sort of say that I'm eating in though I did actually really enjoy some of my science subjects. But I definitely gravitate more towards the words and more the English side. But my husband is has a master's in marine science. So as you said, sea life, that science, he's the Science Guy, but then seeing how people do the science with the kids, and just how cool some of the basic and simple things. And I'm also like, not, I'm like, that's a kindy thing, but I'm like, you know, that'd be really fun, Matt can help. And we can get bicarb and whatever, and make a volcano and,

13: 19

13: you know, seeing how people do that creativity and like little Instagram videos now that, like that, so that that sort of spreading, there's like this whole whole channels dedicated to somebody doing cool experiments. And, you know, like that side of it. And then unfortunately, I think when you go through the school system sometimes and the way it's laid out to you and the assignments and you know, not getting to choose your own path, and then by the time you get to choose, well, I was kind of like so

13: 47

13: tapped out of it. It was like, Well, I'm not gonna do any of that, you know, as opposed to getting to do the fun, keeping it fun. And interesting. And that's the thing, that curiosity, kids are curious creatures, right? We know that from the get go. They're just they're asking you why about everything or poking at something and trying to figure it out. But why does it do that? Why?

14: 09

14: Exactly. So we should harness that and nurture that in them, where we can at home, and, you know, maybe at school holiday programs or whatever, there's a lot of cool stuff that now goes on, in, you know, workshops during the school holidays and things like that. And the school system is the school system. And I think people find this like strengths and weaknesses through that I just knew that I liked 50% practical and theory and that's what site biology, I only did biology. I didn't even do physics and chemistry at school. It just wasn't an option. I hadn't applied. I didn't know you know, I didn't know so I did biology loved it. I was like, oh my god, Mother Nature. Got it. Right. Let's learn about that. So all of that was fantastic. But at the end of it, I wanted to be a nutritionist and I'm not I didn't even end up doing any of that right like a nutritionist and

15: 00

15: A dietitian within hospitals. And that was my goal during the HSC. And I actually missed out by 0.01.

15: 09

15: was so ridiculous, but it's to a number. And I know exactly. And I probably could have gotten if I just asked, but I didn't have parents that had tertiary education with no idea. It's like, oh, that's the mark, you missed it, whatever.

15: 23

15: And then I learned about microbiology and changed my whole track. And, you know, you just don't know where it's going to take you. But then it's like frustrating to that marine science thing with you know, knowing from math, because the, I don't know if it might have changed, but the whatever they want to call it these days with the uauy.

15: 40

15: The number the students

15: 42

15: know, like,

15: 44

15: two years,

15: 45

15: you know, or the prior 18 years. But that was so low. So a lot of people wanted to do marine science and could because they go work with sharks, yeah, sounds dive with sharks. So he's not.

15: 59

15: But he works in an aquarium, like he works in the aquarium industry. He works in the animal care industry, which is he wants to be and he fortunately, through his work, gets to do some environmental care and rescuing of animals, but he wants to be on the environmental care side. And when you said that 50% Like he had the ideal job, which was doing some diving, and then doing some consultation. So some office work, some practical work. And then unfortunately, government funding and stuff like he got made redundant. And so he kind of had the dream job and then

16: 32

16: depends on the government. And then, you know, that classic thing of where I shine of, it's not what you know, it's who you know, yes, the need to go back into, like volunteering or networking or getting in through other ways if he wants to get back in. And so he's like, I wish the score was higher, because all these kids want to do the sexy science. Yes. Being in the ocean. Yeah, jobs a few unfortunately, that's exactly right. And I think that's the thing, there's got to be, what supply and demand and all this sort of stuff, there are some things that are more popular now than others. And you know that they have a hot moment in terms of what the degree is, or what your outcomes are. It's always a hard, you know, hard work on the other side, trying to figure out

17: 15

17: where you'll apply those skills. But I think that's the beauty of

17: 19

17: STEM, or Science and Engineering, like marine biology. And Marine Science is a very specific thing. But if I did a Bachelor science, and honestly, a lot of the other jobs, you know, you're going to become a doctor, it's very linear, you're going to become a lawyer, it's very linear, you know, what you're going to do at the end, and sorry,

17: 38

17: we'll start that sentence again. You know, what you're going to do at the end, whereas with science, it's quite broad. And there's all these ologies that you can end up picking from, and I don't know looking at and deciding what you're good at and love and we might apply that. And you could end up in law with a science degree could be a patent attorney or something you know, that could end up in finance, or there's lots of ways you could apply it.

18: 07

18: Hey, lovely, I want to open the doors to incredible opportunities for you on an all inclusive luxury retreat exclusively for people who are ready to live a life they love. I invite you to join me for five inspiring nights in sensational SriLanka for the rest and receive retreat, hosted from second to seventh of November 2024. by yours truly, Emma Lovell. I've asked you to disconnect your senses and immerse in this exotic culture while you reconnect with yourself. You get to share this luxurious experience with 12 incredible people, while forming connections that last a lifetime. I really cannot undersell or overestimate this incredible retreat and the magic of going to a place to give yourself space and time. I want to share it with you. And if you are interested, then please head to my website. Emma lovell.au/srilanka Retreat. I'd love to see you there and I'm happy to chat. If you have any questions whatsoever. Please take this opportunity to come along and join me in stunning SriLanka.

19: 19

19: Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. And that's something that you're not taught in school.

19: 25

19: Like, you're not told in even university like, and you don't know until you start and so yeah, like I was gonna do I got into a Bachelor of Business and International Studies, I wouldn't have my score wouldn't have been enough for the double was enough for business but not the double. But I had mental health challenges. So I got a buffer that you didn't know about. I got a buffer because I didn't know about that, which allowed me in and then I decided I don't want to spend five years here when I could spend three and do an exchange. So I cut the international I did the business. And then I was fully advertising I was like, for years. I wanted to

20: 00

20: free advertising did the advertising subject and it was good. But I actually really liked the promotion side. And I liked the the promotion element of the marketing. And then it was like, Oh, you could actually add communications, do you agree, which is in a completely different faculty, but I could choose that as a major. So I went into this absolutely different role, like, once you're there, but it's like, where you are so amazing. And you have had media and you've had accolades, and it's incredible, and you're so visible, which I loved, because you can't do what you can't see, you know, and your women saying, You young women seeing you doing what you're doing, it's like, oh, there's this whole other path that I didn't know about, like, but we'd if we don't see it, and really told, advertising scientists, lawyer, doctor, marine biologist working with sharks only, like, then you got and if you don't get that job, you know, Matt's colleague, he's doing water testing. So like, I'm sure you're not like, I'm gonna go to water testing.

21: 04

21: So I'm very good salary. Nine day week, like a nine day fortnight, sorry, he's, it's working for him. And it's like, it's still within the vein of it's still science. It's just, it's more land instead of ocean. And so there's more way more jobs. And as you said before, Matt's issue has been that he's so niche, that issue, but yeah, I know what you mean. Like he's got skill sets that are applied to that niche, but he could probably translate some of those into other areas. But his passion lies with that. So he loves that. And I think that's also harder, because when you love something, I was just in that space for so long. And I've branched out a bit now, but I can understand. It's always translatable though I believe, our skills can be very verbal translated, only if someone sort of like when you're in it, and you're in it. And you've been told this is the path and there's like, and when you're young, and you just if you're not exposed to that, then how would you ever know? And like, what is a startup? What I could actually start my own business, like, Oh, I could create something. I could go that path the way you and I bond. But I just had flashed, then I remembered I actually interviewed you for a magazine for International Women's Day. Which has just gone past last week. Yes. So yeah, women that yeah, I was like, Oh, I think I feel like we've done this before.

22: 27

22: about some of these things. Yeah. I do remember that she defined? I think it will. Yes. Yes, it was about diversity. Which tick.

22: 38

22: And then you've had some pretty big like, just tell us. I mean, you were in a book. You were featured in like, amazing. Girls. Yes, that's right. I was and that was a beautiful surprise. Actually, I didn't even probably know that was happening. They just sent me a copy. And we're like, we've included you in this. And it was so wonderful. I think that was a real moment for me, because you work on, as you said earlier, trying to be what you can't see. And, and I say yes to all of these things, maybe even if I don't want to do them sometimes because it's you know, very out there. But it's mostly because it's important work to showcase where you can go. But also the importance of all those things, you said that we're missing at school, right? Like, the awareness about where you can end up or how you can do it, and that there's not one way and there are multiple ways and there are lots of things that we're good at and bad at and we can become amazing. Anyway, one.

23: 29

23: Those are the messages that I like to, you know, shout and scream about if I can. And so being in that book was just pretty special. Because it

23: 41

23: was, it was so there was rebels stories for girls came out around the time and then it was an Australian, this one was and I can't even tell you, it's because my baby brains. And now there's no memory of anything at the minute, I will find the book and I'll put it in the show notes because I would like to get it for Finn, Dubai, the other one for myself, but I want to buy this one for him. It's such great rates and other beautiful illustrations, and then just a little story about all these different wonderful people, including yourself. And then you want an award a big award, right? Yes, let's do South Wales Young Woman of the Year and 2016 which was probably the starting point for a lot of my trajectory into being able to be a role model and talk to people and because it was a bit of a a nice shine a light on and it just goes to show that by shining a light on women that are doing amazing things through avenues like that it's a really important

24: 38

24: piece of government work. I guess they're doing you know, because it allowed me to go out there and speak more about what I'm doing and showcase that. So I did have that one.

24: 50

24: There were a couple of others I can do.

24: 53

24: The worst that talking about my achievement.

24: 56

24: I mean, it was definitely that around that there was just you just say to me

25: 00

25: thing after thing and speaking more and more and, and then so what happened like, from then like, so the business is finished and then it carried on now I decided to I got an offer for a role at another group. And there were multiple reasons why I stepped away, I was there for about,

25: 20

25: you know, I helped found the idea, get it to where it was, you know, build the business out over a decade. And then I also was pregnant with my first and

25: 32

25: there were just a number of reasons why I needed to pause, hit pause, and think about what else I could do.

25: 42

25: And there's, you know, I basically had an approach from a startup incubator for deep technologies or deep tech, as I've mentioned earlier, to run their med tech and biotech vertical, basically, from, you know, all of it. And it was just a great opportunity, it was basically means all that 10 years experience and more that I had.

26: 03

26: And all the wounds and the scars and the fun stuff I'd learned on the roller coaster of life of startup, I could then give that to other founders, and mentor and coach and build programs for New South Wales Health and groups like that. That's what I was doing. So doing that for our space means it cuts across diagnostics, it cuts across medical devices, it cuts across pharmaceutical therapeutics and digital health. So I got to build a community. And it was really fun, no community that existed. I didn't build it from scratch, like Sokar innovations was the company and it had been around for a long time before I joined. But I got to add my little two cents and my mark and help some people. And it was a wonderful experience. Before I paused again and changed again. But that's that's life and careers. But that's what I was doing them. That's great. Because yeah, like 10 years seems to be quite the mark. I'd say 10 years in my business journey. And it's like, well, not that we got to get bored. But like you said before, you're a builder, like we create things, you created your founder, you've created the thing. And so then, you know, some things aren't forever, and it continues forever. And that's, that's a legacy, that's awesome. But like,

27: 17

27: you don't have, you don't have to be in it. And I think that's such a great like ego separation as well. Or like, I don't have to keep doing the thing that I said I would do. Like, I don't I don't want to do it anymore. And I think it comes back to and I keep saying to a colleague like what do you want to do? And she's like, No, but what does the market want? You want to do? It's like, what do they need, and I was like, if you want to do it, and like you said, if you're passionate about it, and you're engaged in it, and you care about it, that will translate exactly. But if you don't want to and over it, and you're not fulfilled anymore, and it's not, and you've done your job, like you did your job you didn't amazing, that's like, well, that's kind of done and what's next, exactly, and it's living on and they're going to clinical trials, and then putting it you know, to market hopefully this year, so I get to watch all that from a phone and be proud of my contribution and my very big contribution. So I love it, you know, and then that's the main thing, I got to start something and it's not ended yet. So we'll just see how we go. And these things in our industry, especially in med tech and biotech, you never know where it's going to learn the sciences, the science takes a long time, you can only go with what but what the outcome is going to be from the biology or from whatever you're doing.

28: 34

28: And it takes a while. So I love what you said about like, you know, looking at your life as well as like look at where you're at in your life. And when you started the company to you know, having a child like that's also a big like, you know, one being in business for a decade or being in a role for a decade. And then also bringing a child into the world. Oh my god, it's like your perspective shifts much, and your purpose and your, what you're doing and how you use your time like all of that becomes so laser focused and you're about to go through it again. Like it's there's such a reality checker and and kind of like what is the path and what is the direction? Who is this for and what am I doing and it's it's a it's not like it's a bit of an existential crisis at times, but it's also really nice. I just think I found that my boundaries and my focus got better perspective. Yeah, I like to think about it is a shift in perspective for me.

29: 34

29: The first time is obviously, you really don't know what's going to happen and that's gonna affect you and what life's gonna be like but I just really loved it. It's a one time in my life motherhood was the one time in my life where I just gave up control I was at millions of women have done this before. It'll be okay and I'm just gonna go with the flow and I let biology do its thing and then I just let life let me learn as I was going and I because generally I'm an obviously a big one.

30: 00

30: learner and pre planner and organization freak and all of that. But

30: 06

30: I found myself in this

30: 09

30: way of thinking and I loved it. And by changing my role and doing something different, I allowed myself

30: 17

30: some fluidity in who I am, you know, and because I was the breast cancer lady and girl for so long, that it was just nice to have a bit of a shift. And even when I started that job at Tsikata, I hadn't found daycare properly, because I hadn't sorted myself out. So I just strapped it to my chest and took her with me to meetings and put her in the office for a little while for the first little while and it was fun. It's fun.

30: 45

30: Love it. I love it and making it work for you and

30: 50

30: figure it out as you go. And so what what is it now and my question to you, to everyone on this podcast is, what does living a life you love look like right now? Or for the foreseeable future? Right now, for me, it is about being super present. And that sounds really, maybe it sounds cliche, or it's what everyone sort of says. But it's very hard to do sometimes, especially when you're juggling work and parent, I've always I've been working full time, even when I had my daughter. So I think, you know, getting the opportunity to have some time to have maternity leave and thinking about life and be present for all the little things and big things metal just started school this year. So you know, this shifts for everybody in the family at the moment.

31: 39

31: workwise I've had this fantastic job at MTP Connect for a couple of years. And I'm just sort of switching off from that. So being present is one thing, but living a happy life or living my best life will always come down to authenticity for me, I just like to stick to being who I am truly.

31: 58

31: Sometimes that's digestible for people, sometimes it's not. And I'm okay with that. I just think that the energy used to be someone you're not, which happens a lot for some people,

32: 12

32: I will never waste that energy. And like you said, when you met me, I am

32: 17

32: very much who I am culturally who I am, you know, you have been here.

32: 25

32: I grew up in Southern Shire, but I'm Indian, I was born in England, my parents were in other countries, like, I try and bring all of that and just be me. And, you know, a straight shooter as much as I can, but also empathetic. And that's, that's how I tried to live my best life. And I do that for people in in, you know, within my immediate family, including my daughter and my partner and my parents, but also when I have a team or I'm working. That's, that's, that's how I try and keep because then I sleep well at night, because I know I'm being me, and nobody has to worry about do I know the real Dhammika are shipping like, and if you are thinking that way, that's probably more than you want to use?

33: 07

33: Let's just have a chat about and we'll clear the air kind of thing. But I think I yeah, I probably would have got you no matter where we met or what context but like, I think yeah, it was such a blessing to meet you in such an informal setting. And it's why I do love travel. Because when you meet people out traveling, you are your real self. And you can be truly here because you're not anchored to wasn't thinking it's a doctor Dhammika and, or, you know, a school Dhammika or as mum Dhammika. Now, whatever, like I was just like, I just met this cool check.

33: 38

33: Likewise on and, you know, I like that. And I think yeah, it's, I've loved seeing your journey from afar and near when we can. And I love that, you know, time doesn't really have to factor into that. And I have one beautiful moment I came to see you, which is the last time I saw you that I said to you on the way that I had cried in the car because I looked in the mirror and I looked at my son in his car seat. And I was like He's so beautiful. And I love him so much. And I just told you that straight after and I had that flashback come a few times. And then I got to share anchor the moment because I share it with you. And we have that open connection because I think we're both very authentic people. And I think when we're happy to be a bit vulnerable, happy to talk about the ugly things as well as the lovely I think that's that's what makes humans humans. And that's how we connect and I struggle to connect not kit what struggled to sorry I struggle to connect when it's not like that for me.

34: 40

34: can't fake it.

34: 42

34: Oh my god, this was worth the wait Dhammika and you are welcome back anytime because I know that you're gonna go and do something else phenomenal and we'll have to talk about that. But how can we connect with you or do you want to just be left alone or like

34: 57

34: LinkedIn is perfectly fine.

35: 00

35: It's Dominican mystery d h, AR M I C, A and mysteries M, I s try. I've got a Twitter account, I wouldn't say I'm fabulous at it, but I'm there. And it's the same thing that we can mystery. And yeah, that's the probably the two best avenues to connect with me. And I'm always happy to help or, you know, have a chat with someone who's looking to break into this space or learn more about their, you know, learn more about themselves and what a career in STEM looks like. I just, I believe in paying it forward. So that's my philosophy in life, and I'm happy to help or connect people and do that because people do that for me.

35: 37

35: Thank you so much for your time and wishing you the most wonderful next period of your life. And I can't wait to see where it goes. Thanks so much, everyone. Thanks for having me. I've had a great afternoon. It is very much an agenda turn into the afternoon from involving joking,

35: 57

35: chatting and see you again, thank you. Thank you.

36: 03

36: Thank you for listening. Lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and write on Spotify, and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected. Come and join the live a life you love group on Facebook, or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au, the same as my website. But all the details are in the show notes lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom seeking Now go out there and live a life you love