Olympian, world champion hurdler, bobsledder, doctor and mother. Dr Jana Pittman was the big energy, fast talking keynote spokesperson at the Drinks Association’s International Women’s Day Lunch last week.
Describing her as fast-talking is no criticism. Rather, evidence of a person who crams a lot into her days and a lot into her life. It means you talk fast, move fast and live super-sized days.
And you have a support network. A fortunate position to be in for sure. Pittman takes her children training with her before dawn but when she returns home at night for the ‘second shift’ – or maybe it’s the third – she has a nanny, a live-in au pair, and an extraordinary network of friends on board. As well as one inspirational mother who Pittman said is: “The reason that I am standing here today”.
Literally. Pittman had to enlist her dear mother’s help after a flat tyre and two cancelled Ubers. So, Jackie came to the lunch and helped hand out copies of her daughter’s book, Enough: Accept yourself the way you are, to a few lucky guests in the room.
Her presentation was interactive, accompanied by videos and a lot of straight-talking language to the 420 strong crowd who lapped it up and laughed a lot.
“I'm not successful because I'm bright. I'm actually successful because I'm one of the hardest workhorses I've ever met. And so, when someone says you can't do something, I just use it as cannon fodder to say, ‘Well, watch me!’. And all of us have that same opportunity, but we sometimes need a bit of help along the way,” said Pittman.
She challenged guests to think about what they want to achieve: “We have to think it to do it. To be leaders in our space, we actually need to know what it is we want to achieve because then we can teach others how we did it.”
She then backed that up suggesting we state our intention or our goals to a friendly a supporter. And that we remember that the road to reaching those goals is rarely a straightforward one. So, be ready to use those failures to push forward.
At 30, Pittman had left her lifelong career as an athlete, was a single mother living at her parents’ home and not in great financial shape. It was her mother who spurred her on.
Jackie Pittman said to her: “You've taught yourself that through the adversity, through the failures, you stood up and kept going anyway, so who cares what the outcome is? You want to be a doctor?”
“Use the fire, use the upset, use the anger. Instead of bottling it up and pushing it away, letting it hang unseen, pour it out into the open. Get angry about the Olympics. Get angry about the miscarriages. Get angry about love. Get angry about all the crap that you've been through, and then bottle it together and push it into something that's actually worth doing.”
Just six weeks ago, Pittman was part of the team that performed the first ever uterus transplant in Australia.
But, as much as she has achieved even with the failures along the way, Pittman was emphatic that she would not have achieved it on her own; that success does not come without supporters paving the way or making the pathway to change possible. Throughout the speech she called on business leaders to support the change; to make it possible to the next generation.
“As women and men, we have an opportunity to use our lives for the betterment of others. It doesn't matter if you fail, as long as you keep getting up, and sharing the whole ugly journey because that part inspires others to realise that everything they want to achieve, they're capable of with the right weapons and equity and choice.
“And we, in this room, have the opportunity to create that environment for all people by supporting them financially, by the supporting them with mentorship and guidance. It does not need to be money in your pocket. Often, it's your life experience that you share and having the openness and willingness to talk about the ups and downs….because we are the change that we want to see.”
Making those extra efforts to drive gender equity can lead to a life changing outcome collectively.
