Why Compassion Beats Passion - Scott Chapman AM

He turned a $2 million fundraising auxiliary into a $62 million healthcare provider, without being a doctor or a pilot.

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, Jam and Dylan Pathirana sit down with Scott Chapman AM, former CEO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Victorian Section), for an honest conversation on leadership, impact, and what it actually takes to lead one of Australia's most trusted organisations through crisis after crisis.

Scott shares his early life and influences, his unexpected path from teaching into leadership, and the moment he joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service in a role far removed from medicine or aviation. He walks us through how he built genuine conviction around fundraising, the discipline required to grow an organisation responsibly, and the leadership principles that carried him through some of the most difficult periods imaginable, including devastating bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conversation explores the hardest part of leading a resource-limited organisation: deciding what not to do. Scott reflects on impact-driven leadership, the long-term thinking required even when it demands short-term sacrifice, and why authenticity and trust are the real foundations of any lasting relationship, with donors, staff, or communities. He also opens up about legacy, recognition, retirement, and what success actually means to him after a career spent in service of others.

This episode is a powerful reminder that some of the most important leadership lessons come not from titles or credentials, but from a genuine commitment to impact.

What we cover:
Scott Chapman's early life and influences
Defining success and career beginnings
The unexpected path from teaching to leadership
Joining the Royal Flying Doctor Service
Building conviction in fundraising
Leading through bushfires and COVID-19
Deciding what not to do with limited resources
Legacy and long-term impact in nonprofit work
Recognition, retirement, and evaluating new opportunities
Final reflections on success and leadership

Some of our favourite quotes:
"Impact-driven leadership is about action and results." 
"Curiosity fuels innovation and cross-pollination." 
"Authenticity and trust build strong relationships."

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
02:46 Defining Success and Early Influences
04:43 Career Path from Teaching to Leadership
08:52 Joining the Royal Flying Doctors Service
12:49 Building Conviction in Fundraising
18:06 Leading Through Crises: Bushfires and COVID-19
26:28 Deciding What Not to Do
40:43 Legacy and Impact
45:16 Recognition and Retirement
47:18 Evaluating Opportunities
51:35 Defining Success and Legacy
54:36 Final Reflections and Key Traits

#QuestForSuccess #ScottChapman #RoyalFlyingDoctorService #Leadership #CrisisManagement #Nonprofit #Fundraising #Legacy #ImpactDrivenLeadership #LongTermThinking #Authenticity #AustralianCharity #BusinessPodcast #Inspiration

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Transcript

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speaker-0 (00:00.11)
The secret to fundraising is not statistics, it's stories. The more stories you tell, the more people will identify and give to that person. Once a week I sit in with the volunteers and open the mail. Everyone's trying to find the biggest check or the biggest donation. But for me, the real hero, not the person who can afford it, it's the person who can't afford it. I don't want compassionate people, I want compassionate people. Because passion runs out after a while, but compassion doesn't. If you're gonna wait for all the lights to be green before you leave home, you'll never leave home.

Alright, but if you've got a couple of green lights, let's start the journey and work it out as we go. If you have to have a hard or difficult discussion, let's call them genuine discussions, not hard or difficult. And there's two aspects of a genuine discussion. One is your intention is pure. You're not trying to beat the other person or show them how clever you are and that you believe it to be right at the time.

speaker-2 (00:59.02)
All right, welcome back to the Quest for Success podcast and thanks for tuning in once again. Today on the show, we're really looking forward to this conversation because we're sitting down with Scott Chapman, who is the ex CEO of the Royal Flying Doctors Service of Victoria. He's a member of the Order of Australia. He's on a countless number of boards and is very experienced and so really excited to to learn from you and your story, Scott. So thanks for joining us today.

speaker-0 (01:22.542)
it's tremendous. And I'm sure this is probably the earliest interview you've ever done. It's about seven o'clock here. So, in the morning, after a big night of, of fundraising for

speaker-2 (01:29.398)
A cold winter day.

And thank you so much for coming down to have a chat with us Scott. So Scott, this podcast is all about success. And so I wanna start there. For you, what does success actually mean?

speaker-0 (01:45.004)
It's a, it's a very interesting question. and I was thinking about this when I saw the title of your podcast and to me, success, is the impact you actually make. It's not about how much you put into something, you know, how much money goes in, how many patients you look after those sorts of things. It's about what comes out the other end, the, or, you know, the, app, the output or the, or the actual impact.

There's lots of good ideas in the world. and I always say to the boards, I sit on when we're doing strategic planning days, I said, look, I don't want any good ideas because I get in the way of the great ideas. And the difference between the two is that the great ideas actually land. actually, you know, the rubbers hits the road. They happen. They have impact. otherwise you've, you know, a lot of red herrings with lots and lots of good ideas. So it's the great idea. So to me, success is.

is something that is impactful. It makes a difference.

speaker-2 (02:46.318)
And Scott, for us to understand a little bit more about the man we're sitting down with, I'd love to go back to the early days. Can you walk us through a little bit of your upbringing and especially how you think it's shaped who you've become?

speaker-0 (02:57.432)
Gee, let's go on back a bit. Look, I'm the oldest of three boys. Dad was a salesman. He worked at Luna Park as the waffle man. So that was a great after school. I'd go to Luna Park and have an hour or two in primary school. Mum was a stay at home mum. But they certainly put

thought into our upbringing. Little things and I wanted to make sure that we were good citizens. So I remember, know, there were old fashioned dancers and I would say the men never dance. My three boys are not going to be those men. So we'd have to do, if you want dinner, come with me. And she loved it also because she was the only woman, the only girl in the household. So she had four men.

We to go and do the pride of Aaron in the lounge room, right? Or an evening three-step or whatever it was, the old fashioned dance was, before you got your dinner. so it was that kind of an upbringing. dad, dad was transferred over to New Zealand. So between the ages six and nine, I was over there in all, all in all, I went to nine different primary schools, which you could say was disruptive, but for me, it just meant.

I could get on with anybody because you had to, survive. so it was a pretty privileged upbringing. You know, mom and dad, pretty much tea totals. I don't drink. I don't feel a necessity to try and prove myself, especially when you're going through your teenage years, you know, have to drink or have to smoke to be accepted.

speaker-2 (04:43.158)
So

speaker-0 (04:44.684)
They gave me the strength of conviction, I guess. and, and that was it. didn't know what I wanted to be. I, and in those days, was no, career planning. You're given a book, one book and was called the key to your career. And that was one book for the whole year level. And you had, you were allowed to take it home for one night. So in alphabetical order, one, you know, one career to a page, you're trying to work out what I want to be for the rest of my life.

But I knew I didn't want to be a salesman. That was good. We enjoyed it. You we always had to line up at the door when dad had his, his, you know, work colleagues come for dinner and we'd have to shake their hand and then we'd disappear and not let him be seen again. and they'd have their dinner in the main lounge room. so we, so I was a good, look, it was a good upbringing. we, you know, three sons have all done well, you know, we're not geniuses, but, I guess it was,

teaching that I thought would be a good career. And I went off and did started primary teaching. I was pretty good at sport and playing pretty high level sport and David Parkin who was a famous footballer, AFL, coach of Hawthorne, coach of Carlton, who was a lecturer there and he said, you he should be doing the phys ed degree. So I did the phys ed degree.

But halfway through that, I thought this is good and I could make a difference. But to me, it was all about community. so I went and did a youth work degree. the careers interesting over time, I never went into a school, I went straight into outdoor education, taking trips down the Franklin River and snow survival trips into the snow and teaching bush walking skills.

I then went into community services in councils. I ended up in the ANZ bank somehow lasted 10 months and I went back to community again. So I've always been drawn back to that. I, now that I look back on the career, of course I'm now retired. But it's not really a retirement. I'm busier now than I've ever been, which I love.

speaker-2 (07:02.424)
But you end up in working for the government. Yes. So so

speaker-0 (07:07.63)
My first job out of university was the Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation, state government. And that was where I was doing, they owned all these old facilities that were no longer used in other government departments. So they'd give those things to us and say, make a camp out of it. So we had six camps. One was the Kiwa Valley.

electricity scheme up in Falls Creek and when they'd finished building that the housing for the workers, we'll give it to you sport and recreation, they can run snow camps and there was an old orphanage out in the outskirts of Melbourne when that was closed we'll give it to them. So it was a time of awareness of perhaps you know being outdoors a bit of fitness, bit of know activity.

Life being it was a big thing at the time and I was part of all of that. So that was government. So I've worked at state government, I've worked at federal government, I've worked at local government. Local government was the director of community services. I've worked in private enterprise as the CEO of the Southgate development along the Yarra River there in Melbourne. Then into the Melbourne City Council as their

director of marketing, major events, tourism, know, attracting people. But I then kept going back, this is all good, but I gravitate back to, if I can't do it in my work, I do it in my volunteer life. And that's it. You making an impact on, on, on community.

speaker-2 (08:52.11)
And Scott, did you always know knew that you were born to lead?

speaker-0 (08:59.924)
It's a very good question. In a way, it's, I'm feeling comfortable with people you first meet. Going through university, was, you going to find a job and I was working at the YMCA doing bits and pieces, but I also had a job at the local hotel. Now, when you're a barman at the age of about 19 and you've got people who are coming and going, you become the master of the...

of the five second conversation. I was always, I guess, you know, I went to Cubs and I ended up as the head of the patrol or whatever it was called. And then I went to Scouts and ended up as the group leader and I played footy, ended up as a captain. So in a way I was kind of put into these, not because I was any better, but I don't know what it was, but it just felt a comfortable or natural, natural spot. I don't need to lead, but every committee or board I get on somehow.

I ended up as the chairman or the president or the leader. So maybe the answer is yes. I've never thought about it.

speaker-2 (10:03.918)
Hey, sorry to interrupt. I just have a favor to ask before we begin. If you've been enjoying these conversations and want more stories that redefine success, please do us a massive favor and hit the subscribe button over on our YouTube channel. It literally takes two seconds to do and is completely free. It's a small gesture, but it makes a massive difference for us as it really helps us to grow the show. And with that, let's get into the episode.

And I wanna know like how did you end up in that kind of board or executive role? Because you know, obviously starting out as a teacher, it's not the natural progression.

speaker-0 (10:42.518)
I've always had a lot of energy and I over commit as you'll see the sit on 13 boards at the moment and chair 11 and I'm the deputy chair of the other one or two.

speaker-0 (11:00.366)
Whenever I was in a career, I'd want to know, well, where does that career take, know, what, what, does that industry work? Is there a parent body? You know, is there a membership organization? Is there an advocacy and how do we make the industry perhaps better? So how did, so the volunteer for those things are always related to the job I had at the time. So, you know, it's Southgate, which was retail, you know, the retailers association, what do they do?

So there was a natural curiosity but also I was drawn to it to know well what was bigger than what I'm doing now. Still obviously you know being true and truthful to and loyal to the you know to whoever's paying you but you could bring bring stuff. So when I was in you know working in sport I was also about the CEO of snow skiing. I was drawn to the you know the Victorian

Sports Association which all the sporting organizations belong to and got on there somehow got on their committee. I then did a Masters but I didn't do an MBA. I did a Masters in Business Management. Now that's more focused on getting the best out of others than it is about economics and accounting. Some say it might have been a softer Masters but it did me well because again I see organizations not as well.

there's processes and there's policies and everything else. But at end of the day, it's a collection of people that come together trying to do the best they can with the tools that they've been given in life. How do you work and get the best? And then that might've come from doing a lot of outdoors, you know, taking eight people, you know, on a 12 day wilderness trip. You've got to be able to get, you know, get the best out them so that we all survive at the end.

speaker-2 (12:49.09)
Hundred percent. And Scott, I wanna know like what drew you to the Royal Flying Doctor's service because it's such an iconic Australian organisation.

speaker-0 (12:57.23)
It was, and it was an interesting part. was about 52, 53. I just finished 10 years, two five-year contracts at the City of Melbourne as one of the five directors. So there's the directors, the CEO, then the council. So you're at the top end of 3,000 staff. And I...

It was not keen on signing up for another five years. and so I left with no real idea of where I was going to go. In fact, it was probably a bit of a, career crisis. as I tell my kids, know, not every job is more than the job you had before. There's probably a couple of dips on the way, but as long as you end up further up than when you started, you probably had a good career. and I saw, someone referred me to somebody and they said, you know, the flying doctors. I said, well, aren't they in the desert?

I live in Victoria and they said, no, it's a federated model. So every state has a flying doctor service. But so I've never heard of one in Victoria. the reason was is that, interestingly, the flying doctors were actually begun in Victoria. John Flynn, the founder, was born in Maligua, just outside of Bendigo in Victoria. The doctor he first worked with, Simpson, was from Malvern in...

in Melbourne. The first donor was H. V. McKay of the international harvester, know, a very, sunshine harvester, sorry. And he was a great philanthropist and he was from, well, Sunshine, the suburb in the end, it was named after actually his company. So it was story of those sort of people, the person who began, you know, the radio, the pedal radio.

was born in country Victoria. And the person who actually gave John Flynn the idea of the airplanes was in Western Victoria. So, and the first meeting was in the Melbourne town hall and Victoria started the flying doctors by opening the very first base in the Kimberley. So although, and this is in a time when the money was in the capital city and the population.

speaker-0 (15:20.206)
But the need was certainly in the outback. And we ran that for 70 years and then gave it to Western Australia and they were big enough to run it themselves. We came back to Victoria and just for 10 years became a fundraising auxiliary. I guess distributing the money to other states. And when I came in in 2010 and there was only five part-time staff, we'd run a dinner and

tax appeal through letters. We're raising about a million dollars. We'd be giving that to Western Australia and putting some money in the bank. So at that stage, we were a $2 million business or service with no services at all in Victoria. And I thought there's three things here. We've got money in the bank. So if I muck it up, I've got a couple of years to see how I go. A Greenfield site.

And a brand to kill for, you know, the rural flying doctor service. when I left 14 years later, we were turning over $65 million, just under a thousand staff. And we were doing more than just flying doctors royally. we have obviously aircraft, but I believe that we shouldn't be captured by a brand. You know, we're not, it's not an edict. It's not a.

It's not a law that you only fly doctors and in fact we have more nurses. We do a lot of road work. We had 120 ambulances doing non-emergency backup to the ambulance service, the emergency ambulance service. And we also got into community building, going back to my roots again. So, one of the biggest costs to the health system is missed appointments. Not the appointment you miss at the time, which means

the doctor or the hospital or whatever doesn't get their $65 from you or Medicare or your insurance. But if you miss an appointment, then often things get more chronic and then you're a bigger burden on the health system. So we got into community transport. So, and that was easy. We had a brand we put on the side of a car. We're offline doctor service, community transport. We got volunteer communities.

speaker-0 (17:42.19)
We got the local Alliance Club to provide the petrol we'd provide two vehicles and a donor would give you the money for that And then a volunteer service would pick people up take them to their appointment mainly in rural and rural areas rural regional areas Stay with the person and then take them home again Friendships would form Reliances would and in a way it was

speaker-2 (18:06.702)
speaker-0 (18:08.55)
The volunteers probably got as much out of it from a mental health point of view about being or feeling important again, being needed by their community as much as the person needed the lift in. So there's a lot of stories. And I just said, let's apply the brand to the need, even if the need is not emergency rescue.

speaker-2 (18:27.383)
Yeah.

But coming from government to ch charity organization, that's quite different, right? Have you had any experience in raising funds?

speaker-0 (18:41.006)
Well, I wasn't a fundraiser. And it is quite different. But in a way, it's the same because I used to always say to my staff in government, this is not our money. This is the public's money. Are we spending it wisely? Be good if governments had that discussion now. we spending it wisely? We are just custodians of it. It's not our money. We're not a private company. With charities, it's the same. People are giving you in

most cases you know they're donating money you know we also can donate time and donate skills but donating money and they're trusting you with with their money so in a way that was it was a bit similar. The learnings of governance in government you know how to do you know proper reporting and recommendations and following policies I took a lot of that with me and and brought that discipline of

of government accountability into charities. The reason I got into a charity, guess, as I said, I'd worked at Federal. This is a bit how I work in my life. Federal, state and local, okay, so I've done government, I've done private enterprise, I've done retail, I've done a sport, I've been the boss of a sport. And although I had been on lots of committees and boards raising money or providing services, like you're on the

speaker-2 (19:46.317)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (20:08.686)
you're on the local footy club because your kids are playing footy. So, you know, how do we make sure that they have a good season and that, you know, that we're financially sustainable. But I hadn't actually worked in a charity. So I thought, okay, that's where I'll, to round out your career. And, and it did round it out and it was fantastic. So, so whereas Victoria had no flying doctor service, it became almost the largest provider of services, not always just airplanes in the air, which is

probably more needed in the remote areas of the strait.

speaker-2 (20:40.536)
Yeah, true.

Yep. And Scott, you I was reading and you can manage to convince the board to sink like a around five million dollars into face to face fundraising. I wanna know like from that experience, how do you build conviction in you know these ideas? So

speaker-0 (21:00.874)
In not-for-profits and charities, there's 65,000 registered charities in Australia at the moment, with about 4,000 being added every year and about 3,000 winding up. On boards of causes, and most charities are built around a cause, people who volunteer or come onto those boards are drawn to the cause. They want to make a change.

I now lecture internationally and nationally for a company called Revolutionize International on convincing boards that if there's no money there's no mission. So you can be as mission driven as you like but if you can't afford to do you you've got no money to do it. The question comes down to do we keep every dollar we get, we spend on the service, the cause, the need?

speaker-2 (21:48.77)
So

speaker-0 (21:59.318)
Or do we say, actually we're in the health business or we're in the transport business if we're talking about the flying doctors or CDF, but we're also in the fundraising business. And as I said last night at this dinner, you know, it's competitive, it's regulated. Like any businesses, we have to invest in, you have to spend money to make money.

speaker-2 (22:21.282)
So

speaker-0 (22:28.268)
The conviction is, going back to your question Dylan, is do we take money away from the service in the short term so we can provide more services in the long term? And that comes down to giving boards permission to do that. But it's hard because fundraisers don't tend to sit on boards. People who want to deliver and make a difference do. So it's about getting them to see the light.

I'm a great believer that you can't be a prophet in your own land. You've to bring someone in from next door to say what you want to say and say, that must be right. So for the flying doctors, I brought in a guy from Scotland who was doing this. was the head of Revolution Eyes. he spoke, the hard part was getting the board together for a day just because they were all business people to listen to a guy about.

fundraising at the end of it, I remember the chairman came up and said, I get it, know, we got to invest in this part of the business as well. Cause usually it's let's do the strategic planning. Here's all the things we need now, by the way, fundraising, we've worked out our expenses, you go away and bring the money in. So well, that's, you know, we also need a strategic plan for how to do that. And that's what happened. So I said to the chairman, I don't know how at the moment, but give us six months and we'll come back with a business plan.

with projections and investment strategy. And we came to the board and it was a million dollars a year for five years. We looked at the donor pyramid. You've got the first gift, which is often a go away gift or a shut up gift. know, here, how do you convert people from a first gift to a second gift? In other words, how do you start to rust them onto your cause? There's a skill in that. From that into a, into a

a major gift, a bigger gift which might be a one-off and then obviously the ultimate is a bequest, being a gift in the will. But the bit that was missing for us was regular giving. in charities, you start on the 1st of July and you spend money providing services and hope you have a good Christmas appeal to top it up. Then you spend down again and hope you have a good tax appeal.

speaker-0 (24:52.512)
And along the way you might have a dinner or two or other, you know, other bits and pieces. It's really hard to, to run a business like that where you're always in debt, hoping that you, you know, the generosity of people will get you and world events can, can impact confidence in the people. First thing people do is hold back from donating, donating because they need it for themselves. But regular giving, is, if have people giving out of their wage.

or out of the bank on a monthly basis, $20 or whatever, it flattens out the year. So you've got a steady income. The business case to the board was within two years, we think, you know, we're spending money and it'll take us two years for it to come back and break even. Well, we did it in 14 months, which was the strength of the brand. And it's what got us through COVID.

the course when it crossed over the board said, well, we're making money now. We don't have to spend, you know, the last three years of a million dollars. Well, actually you do. You've got to replace people. You've got to service people and you want to keep building it. So, I think after, after about five years and the board still invests million now, we were bringing in, you know, invest a million and it was about 7 million a year coming in. So that wasn't, wasn't a bad investment. We had to take the dip or take the

take some services away for the first couple of years, but now they're providing well, $65 million worth of services rather than $2 million a year.

speaker-2 (26:28.366)
Absolutely, that's incredible. And I want to know, you went from the twenty nineteen, twenty twenty bushfires straight into COVID. As a leader, how do you lead through uncertain times like that?

speaker-0 (26:39.394)
There's a whole podcast on leadership in tough times. So I have a couple of things that help me go through, you know, to find my leadership journey. And that is, first of all, I recognise that everyone's coming with the skills that they've got, the tools that have been given in life. And I have a fundamental belief that people want to and will do the right thing.

So you need to believe in your people if you're delegating. But if you delegate, that doesn't mean you abrogate. You also need to just keep an eye on and help them having a very open door policy. But it's about making decisions. Again, when I speak or lecture or talk or coach or mentor, I'll say if you're in a leadership position, you're paid to make a decision. If you have to make 10 decisions,

and you get eight or nine of them right, you're probably in the right job. If you only get two or three of them right, you're probably in the wrong job. Okay. And we'll, you know, I'll do my best to help you make the right decisions. But at the end of the day, so it's a bit like bringing kids up, you know, don't let them climb in a tree, they'll fall. Well, I need to learn to climb. Let's do it in a way that they can do it as safely as possible. Even though my daughter did break her arm falling out of a tree.

I was in trouble after that. But they love the outdoors as I do the outdoor adventure. It's having a couple of principles of leadership. It's also about resilience. We heard about that last night at a dinner for patient transport in Sri Lanka. 12 years, it's hard to keep coming back. It's hard to keep raising $20 million a year when on the first of

speaker-2 (28:13.216)
So it's so it's a

speaker-0 (28:37.038)
30th of June, if one's celebrating, then on the 1st of July, I put 20 cents down with our head fundraiser and say, and team and make a bit of a joke of it and say, and now we start again. And we build up another 20 million or whatever it is, or across Australia, 120 million for the flying doctors. But to do that year in year out takes resilience. And I, and I would always use the story of John Flynn who

speaker-2 (28:58.966)
Unbelievable.

speaker-0 (29:04.206)
I mean, he was born in Maliagal, he became a teacher, he went down, he taught for a while, was in in a, he found a a bigger calling to be part of the church and he was sent into the outback and when he saw, and that was to be, you know, to spread the word of God, he was like a travelling Padre, but he saw that there's a bigger need out here, or as big a need in health services and as there is for that. Well, he went out in 1911 and

The Flying Doctors began, as I said, Victoria, that meeting in the Melbourne town hall was in 1932. Had to go through war and everything else. But he held onto his dream. became a bit of a pain in the backside in the end because he just wouldn't let go that dream. But often change agents have to be. And he lived until the 1950s and he saw his dream come true. Well, it wasn't just a good idea one day, getting back to those good ideas.

And six months later, it's up and running. It was a great idea, but it took him nearly 20, 25 years to get it off the ground. And in that time, he's... So that's another part of leadership is that... So when you come out of bushfires and you're into floods, and we're helping with evacuations, not just emergency evacuations, but also whole aged care facilities in areas and...

speaker-2 (30:14.924)
Yeah. Stuck to it. Yeah.

speaker-0 (30:33.89)
and getting staff to work at night or on weekends and those sorts of things. They need to see you as a leader in amongst it, not just sitting in your ivory tower giving instructions and going home at five o'clock because you've got something on. If they see that you're sacrificing, you're a part of it, you're happy to roll your sleeve up, not just in emergencies, but at any time, you do get pretty good follow ship.

I talk about followership as a whole skill. A lot of people talk about leadership, but if you're not leading anything, if no one's following, you're hardly leading. So that whole followership is a whole thing as well.

speaker-2 (31:13.654)
Is it more of a like a servant leadership you're talking about?

speaker-0 (31:16.302)
Sometimes it is. You need a master and servant relationship, adult child relationship. Certainly if it gets to a point where it is a real emergency or there is a decision to be made and you need to make a captain's call. But hopefully you don't get to that because you've got your leadership team, you've recruited people, you've delegated them responsibility.

not irresponsibly, you know, those who you know, you've got faith in their skills. You work together. You also admit that you don't know. I don't know. I mean, there's no way I know as much as they know. I'm a generalist. I just try and bring people together. They're the experts. So you let them go. And if something does go wrong, you've got to tell them, I've got your back.

speaker-2 (31:56.397)
Yeah.

speaker-2 (32:10.626)
Yeah. Of wonderable. Yep.

speaker-0 (32:13.39)
I want you to try it and if it doesn't work we've got your back and that gives them the confidence to have a go and nine times out of ten they just know what to

speaker-2 (32:22.568)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of had more than hundred and twenty roadside vehicles. How did you convince your donors, like you know, flying doctors is not just about flying.

speaker-0 (32:37.438)
It wasn't the donors I had to convince, I had to convince the rest of the country because flying doctors, doctors are an interesting cohort to work with. Pilots are also a very interesting cohort. And once in the outback, in a way they're heroes. And I remember getting a phone call. So in Victoria, I didn't need airplanes because we're not, know, yes, we have aircraft, especially when we've got to repatriate people to other states.

But by the time you, you know, you got the call, the, the, the pilot, you know, got to the airport. you're back to playing out. You warmed it up. You took off. you could, know, you could be there in an hour or an hour and a half by road. So I remember, you know, getting calls saying, but yeah, but we're the, we're not road doctors. We're the flying doctors. Well, I said, well, yeah, but before you were flying doctors, you're actually camel riding doctors.

in the days of John Flynn and before. And pretty soon you're probably going to end up as telephone doctors with the advent of telehealth. So let's get away from the toys and just say, we are doctors or we are medical practitioners or different health, allied health service providers. Let's forget about the method of delivery and concentrate on the patient. We did get a contract with Ambulance Victoria here and

speaker-2 (33:59.149)
So

speaker-0 (34:04.282)
some insurance companies and some hospitals and in turn talking to donors, donors give to you need a drop down menu. People just don't say here's the money. A lot of people want capital. They want to buy humidity cribs for babies or money towards an aeroplane or money towards an ambulance. And I guess part of my marketing and retail expertise or experience was around

Well, that gives us real estate. And the fact that if I don't know the flying doctors are in Victoria, not many others to either. that's true. 120 ambulances actually gave me 120 billboards to drive around the state saying, who are they? The flying doctors? didn't know they were here. I I need to find out more. And when we, you know, establish these in different country areas, and this is doing the, the backup work for ambulance Victoria, we weren't doing the emergency work.

In other states we do, but in Victoria government legislation is that only Ambulance Victoria does those emergency response. So St John's who do it in some other other states ourselves, in here we can't. So we said, what if we did the non-emergency work, which means you guys are released to do the emergency work and the definitions changed over time. So if you're playing footy on the weekend and someone breaks a leg, they ring an ambulance. Well, is it really an emergency? Not really.

All right. You need medical help and support and possible transport, but it's not an emergency. It's not life and death. That's the sort of stuff that we would do. you're going to trans take a patient from hospital to home or from home to hospital or hospital to hospital, just transferring for something. That's what we

speaker-2 (35:50.828)
Do. Yeah. And Scott, I'd love to know, in a world of finite resources and infinite need, how do you decide what not to do?

speaker-0 (36:00.974)
It's interesting, I don't know if I even have an answer to that because if you're driven to do more, to grow, you probably don't see the fact that it's impossible. So one thing that we did do, was, again, we talk about the competitive landscape of raising money. So I went to America to set up Friends of the Fly and Dr. USA.

We had one in the UK and I thought, well, expats might want to support us. So one had to think out the box and then start the fundraise out of the box. And we've had some pretty good donations come from there. But I was over there and it's nighttime, three o'clock, jet lag, wide awake, turn on the telly as you do in America, 450 stations, trying to work out, well, I think 400 of them telling me which church to follow and...

which, which, you know, which drug to take and who I can sue and all that sort of stuff. And I came across a documentary out of Holland, out of the Netherlands. And it was a nurse, sorry, a paramedic who had picked up a patient, a 43 year old cancer patient from hospital and it was taking him to palliative care. So it was this guy's last trip. He put him into the back of the ambulance and a phone call came through that said,

palliative care beds not ready for four hours. The paramedic said, well, I have to put you back in the bedroom. And the patient said, well, I've been in there for six months. I don't want to spend any more time in there. They got talking. They're probably about the same age, couple of blokes. He said, what I'd really like to do is just go back down to the harbour, to the docks where I worked for the last 20 years, smell the sea air again, listen to the horns of the boats. So somehow.

It must have been a slow day on emergencies or something, but he got permission to do it. Took him down there. On the way they rang this guy's family. The family rang his work colleagues and they spent a day in a hospital stretcher with oxygen and a drip and everything else and did a couple of laps. And it was like a celebration. Then he went off and unfortunately he died a few weeks later. This paramedic was telling

speaker-0 (38:24.27)
the others. and someone said, my mother's got three months to live. How can we get it to the Rikes museum to have a look at this, you know, Rembrandt painting for the last time? Can you knock off an ambulance on a Saturday? I mean, I'm obviously Australianizing that. And from that, it grew and he established a thing called the wish ambulance. And it was about final journeys for people. And I'm in tears watching this. I reckon it was a jet lag, but it was probably the stories.

and I'm thinking, you'll get 120 ambulances. We have 500 staff who drive these things. We could do this now to convince my board of that. But no, we're about saving lives. We're not about, that's not saving a lot. Yeah. said, yeah, but it's about dignity for people who have lived and contributed, you know, well to this. So it took two or three years to get there. The donors, however, loved it. So, well, that could be me. So we, you know, so probably two or three times a month, we have, call it memory lane here.

speaker-2 (39:18.616)
So

speaker-0 (39:23.416)
We have a couple of dedicated ambulance that donors raised money for. They don't look like ambulance. They look more like camper van. So you take that medical aspect out, even though behind all the walls is all the medical stuff. And we've taken people to the, you know, most people just want to either go home, look at their garden one more time, go to the beach. And there's so many stories that come out of it. The secret to fundraising is not statistics, it's stories.

The more stories you tell, the more people will identify and give to that person or whatever. So that's one big aspect. The other is that people give to people. If they trust you and you have a good relationship with them. I open the mail once a week. I sit in with the volunteers and open the mail and everyone's trying to find the biggest check or the biggest donation.

speaker-2 (40:09.486)
So

speaker-0 (40:19.47)
But for me, the real hero, the real person who's not the person who can afford it, it's a person who can't afford it. The letter that you get from, in very shaky handwriting saying, dear Scott, sorry, I can't give more, whatever. And they've given $5 and you look at their address and it's an aged care home and you think.

speaker-2 (40:43.054)
This these are the heat.

speaker-0 (40:47.252)
And so it's just a rewarding place to be.

speaker-2 (40:52.334)
Yeah. D would you do you say memory lane is one of your proudest achievements?

speaker-0 (40:59.47)
It is, through life, if you put yourself in, in vulnerable positions, I mean, I, I, I, I tell lots of stories. I tear up as I am a little bit now, cause of the, of the, not, I don't, I don't want passionate people. want compassionate people cause passion runs out after a while, but compassion doesn't it's part of your DNA.

speaker-2 (41:22.52)
So

speaker-0 (41:23.374)
It is. When AJ, who was at 42, she's dying of cancer. She just wants to go down to the beach one more time and feel the sand between her toes. So often it's a sentinel moment that they want. I want to see the rose garden that my wife who died 14 years ago planted one more time. Okay. I want to go to my final ANZAC Day Dawn service one more time.

That was good. you know, I wish there were more of that. worked with, you know, there's all the medical permission slips and, you know, family consent forms and all the rest of it. But I went on one or two of them and it's just life changing when you're sitting with someone who knows that they've got limited time. people only get one, so you can't, it's not a, not a social service. You get one trip only.

speaker-2 (42:16.682)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (42:22.35)
But it's almost a cash cow. The donations roll in because people can identify. So I wish I had that for my mum or my dad. Hope this is around when I'm like this, you know, a 14 year old girl who wanted to go to a concert to see someone, you know, her favorite singer. So we took her, but it wasn't just, you know, the concert, you know, we'd organize for the singer. So she went backstage. AJ who went down to the beach, you know, she's, she's laying out clothes or giving instructions to lay out clothes. Which outfit will I?

to use, what girlfriends can I invite? It just gives, and in a way it's a celebration of life. it gives me a happy memory rather than a sad memory at the end. Yeah. So, so I'm pretty proud of that. The other one was a Sri Lankan story. was acting CEO of the city of Melbourne when the tsunami hit, we put on a concert at the, the my music ball. We raised half a million dollars and I was fortunate enough.

speaker-2 (42:57.652)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (43:19.246)
because the CEO came back, so I didn't have to act as CEO. But three weeks after the 2004 tsunami, to go across to the southern part and see the devastation, but to try and find some projects that we could put this towards. And we ended up building a school in Dickweller. And it was a devastated community. It was a kilometre in from, so it didn't get hit, but all the other schools, the kids from other schools, and lucky it was school holidays at the time.

were sending their kids to this school. So it was overcrowded. You know, there's only one set of toilets, which for the girls, boys were behind the trees, overwhelmed with too many kids and, you know, rusty, corrugated outdoor classrooms with, you know, bricks or rocks on them to so it wouldn't blow off. mean, dangerous stuff. So we built a nine, three story nine room,

speaker-2 (44:09.56)
Yeah, yeah.

speaker-2 (44:14.38)
Classrooms, yeah.

speaker-0 (44:16.47)
and it became the centre of the community itself. So on weekends there was a computer club and we got computers and there was a sewing circle and so we got some sewing machines and the oval became a market garden and those sorts of things and I went back with the Deputy Lord Mayor at the time, probably about two or three years later, to the opening and the school had won the Sri Lankan Dance Competition or something, I can't remember.

They were so proud and yeah, I'm sitting up there at the end with a, it's like the king and the queen and a parade and flowers and yeah, but it was, it wasn't for yourself. It was just, we've made, look at the, look at the difference we've made to the impact. That's right. The impact. So there's been, been a few proud moments over, over my time. and I've been lucky because you put yourself in these vulnerable or difficult places. And if it works out, it works out.

speaker-2 (45:16.716)
And Scott, you were made a member of the Order of Australia. What did that mean to you?

speaker-0 (45:21.602)
Well, it would have meant more if my mum and dad was still alive. unfortunately, mom, dad passed away in 2018, mum in 19. and you don't know you're getting one of these until you get a phone call saying, it's interesting would, if, if you were nominated or if you were awarded, would you accept it? That's an interesting, phone call. Cause obviously they don't want, don't want people saying, no, I don't want it. So I said, yeah, I would.

speaker-2 (45:50.851)
Thanks.

speaker-0 (45:51.566)
You have to keep this secret, but you don't know. So you're waiting for another three months and you forget about it, obviously. And then, then you'll get the letter saying, well, you've actually been nominated and not everyone who's nominated gets it. you're, you didn't even know who nominated it. You don't, want to know who hit it. They don't tell you, but you say you try and work that out. So it was pretty, I got to have the kids and their partners there at the, at the ceremony.

speaker-2 (45:57.134)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (46:19.182)
Obviously I knew the governor through the work that I do. She's our patron and everything else. But, but I, we, I wear the pin proudly not to show off, but just, just because, you know, being recognized by your country to, that you've done done good work. is a proud moment. You know, when you start, you know, I go back to being in cubs and you get your first proficiency badge for, don't know, whatever it is housekeeping or.

stamp collecting or something right through to that it was it was a great moment

speaker-2 (46:51.04)
Yeah, yeah. A and and after fourteen years working for flying doctors and two thousand four sorry, two thousand twenty four, you decided to, you know, retire. So

speaker-0 (47:04.45)
Yeah, I did. So I was 66, now I'm 68, 69 and I'm 70 next year and it's gone quickly. I just thought, you know, there's other things that I want to do. But I wasn't ready to play golf and mow lawns. I've always been on committees or boards. I'm a fellow of the AICD and a few others.

speaker-2 (47:18.17)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (47:33.518)
Cause I believe you've got to, you know, if you're going to do things, you got to keep your, your skills and your knowledge up. gave me an opportunity to think about what else I wanted to do. But before I actually got to that, I was starting to field phone calls or you would you come on our board and cause you, you know, you've got lots of connections and cause I've worked in education and health and retail and, you know, banking and you got lots of contacts. It hasn't just been in one, one career stream.

speaker-2 (47:39.928)
So

speaker-2 (47:59.598)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (48:03.476)
And I received a phone call from the International Flying Doctors based in Africa, in Kenya, and they were looking for a chairman. So I'm now the chair of the Amrath International Flying Doctor Service based out of Nairobi. So that gave me an opportunity to go, which I couldn't do that if I was here. And really it's about taking what I've learned from a developed, mature Flying Doctor Service to...

I don't know if I'm allowed to say developing country, but you know, a country where there's lots of challenges. So I really enjoy that. And then I sit on a number of other boards.

speaker-2 (48:43.976)
So what do you what do you look for when before you say yes to those opportunities?

speaker-0 (48:48.59)
Well, you need to do some due diligence because you've also got your reputation. And that's being a bit selfish. You spend a lot of time building up, you you're in branding. What's your, know, what's your own brand? Yeah. What brand? what, person? Yeah. Your personal brand. So, so you do spend a bit of time trying to craft that and you should so that, you know, people know what they're getting. So you don't want to put that at risk. So you need to do a bit of due diligence.

on the, on the organization itself, has it, you know, is it financially viable? Is it doing good work or, you know, are there any court cases hanging over it? All these sorts of things. But even if it, even sometimes it might fail my due diligence test. It's often the people who, know, the person who's asking you to do it. I'm patron of the, CDF charity. and.

the person who asked me to do it, is that person a good person? Are they doing their best? Do they need help? And I remember buying a book which was a book that said, it was called, When I Say No I Feel Guilty. And it was to try and cue you to learn to say that it's okay to say no. I'm not very good at that. Because I think, well if I can help or I can do something in some way.

speaker-2 (50:10.776)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (50:15.788)
And that's how you end up on 13 boards and in trouble at home.

speaker-2 (50:20.716)
Yeah, still got plenty of time to play golf, Scott.

speaker-0 (50:23.566)
There's plenty of time for that. But I've always looked for things where, know, in talking to people who, know, career counseling, I say, look, the perfect job is not there. But the potential of it is so, but the first thing you need to work is what are you looking for? Not what can you do, but what do you want to do? Yeah, I can do that and I can do that. But yeah, but do you want to do it? I had a list after I left government.

speaker-2 (50:48.494)
So

speaker-0 (50:52.714)
It was about 12 things. I wanted something that the family would be pretty, would the family be proud of this? Can they be involved in it? And they come to fly and doctor dinners and things like that. Is it, is there enough to live on, you know, if it's a job, is it broad or narrow, all those sorts of things. I just, I just do that test and see whether or not it's something I can.

can certainly do. There's lots of things I'm thinking about as you're asking the questions and it's a privilege to be asked these questions because it brings it all back to you know why you do it, how you do it and what you hope to leave you know what what's the legacy at the end.

speaker-2 (51:26.903)
Yeah.

speaker-2 (51:35.594)
Absolutely, yeah. And speaking of legacy, what is the legacy that you want to leave behind?

speaker-0 (51:40.28)
Well, that was my legacy. Not that old, but...

speaker-2 (51:42.506)
She's on.

speaker-0 (51:48.266)
My pet, there were two things that, cause someone's obviously, you what did you learn from your mom and dad? Mom always had a saying, which was, you know, good, better, best, never let it rest until your good is better and your bed is best. All right. Always do your best. Okay. And it might not work out and you might fail, but you've had a crack and you've done the best you can. If people can see that and learn from that.

speaker-2 (52:03.969)
So always

speaker-2 (52:17.645)
Dead on the

speaker-0 (52:18.03)
other hand and it helped balance everything he said son 95 % of what you worry about never happens because you can get anxious and worried about is it the right thing the wrong thing will it work won't it well that's the will I think this will I 95 % of what you worry about doesn't happen so in a way chill so mum's got me over here

Busting out doing my best. Dad's saying, just take it easy. It'll all work out in the end. I belong to the center for optimism, which is one man who's the chief optimist. He calls himself the chief optimism officer. And he's got podcasts and he does all the rest of it. And it's about optimism. Now optimism, optimism isn't happy, clappy, everyone's happy sort of stuff. It's about

a simple saying that is all will be well. In other words, it will be okay in the end. and having that, that attitude that, okay, we're going into this. Yeah. If you're to wait for all the lights to be green before you leave home, you'll never leave home. All right. But if you had a couple of green lights, let's start the journey and work it out as we go. Let's build a plane while we're flying it sort of thing.

speaker-2 (53:21.357)
Yeah.

speaker-2 (53:28.558)
Do your best. Do your best.

speaker-0 (53:42.592)
in some cases with regards to new projects. So I guess my legacy is, and I told my kids and others, one, have a crack, do your best. If it doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be. And that's a blend of those two. So I guess my legacy is just, you hope that there's services that are left behind. But I'm also quite aware that...

I'm relevant now, but I'll be irrelevant soon. my ego is not such that I, you know, I need to be important or name in lights. You've made your contribution. You lie down at the end of it and say, well, I've done as good as I can. A couple of things I'm mucked up along the way. Yeah. It's not, everything's perfect. But, it's, it's, it's that optimism. Yeah. It's It's been a good life. Yeah. A lucky life.

speaker-2 (54:36.302)
Yeah, yeah. And Scott, honestly we could we could talk for hours, but I'm cautious of of your time. I know you're a busy man and you've got places to be. But before we wrap up, I'd love to know, given your definition of success was largely around impact. Do you feel successful?

speaker-0 (54:51.138)
Yeah, I think I feel successful in life. It's not just in your work life and not just, you know, in home life. I mean, I've gone through a broken marriage and, you know, that's a failure, a public failure when you spend most of your time trying in the public not to fail. And I lament that, you know, there's other things that have happened that you... But I think...

I think I've made the best decisions with the information I've had at the time. my intention is pure. And I remember learning this about, it comes from leading teams and it's about, if you have to have a hard or difficult discussion, let's call them genuine discussions, not hard or difficult. And there's two aspects of a genuine discussion. One is,

Your intention is pure. You're not trying to beat the other person or show them how clever you are. You know, there's an issue. My intention is to solve the issue. My intention is pure. and that you believe it to be right at the time. might be wrong later down the track in hindsight, but at the time, based on what you know, you know, you do it. I've, I've had a pretty good life. The kids are good. You know, they're all happy. There's three things you want for your kids. One is, you know, they've got their own home.

They got a job and they got somebody in the world who says that you're the most important person to me. That's all worked out well. So I'm very happy with that. good friendships. It's been a good life. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm lucky. I'm really lucky. Yeah.

speaker-2 (56:32.786)
And Scott, throughout this discussion, I've been trying to jot down what I think are some of the core traits which have led to your successful life and I'd like to share them with you. The first one I think is you're very impact driven. I think that comes from your definition of success. And more than just like talking about impact, you want to see the impact actually get done. And I think that's a really important thing, maybe like being action oriented. The next one is curiosity. And I think

throughout your your journey, you know, you've kind of just been looking for opportunities acr across your across the road and also looking for opportunities for cross pollination as well between different industries, between all of the things that you've worked on in your career. How can you bring those opportunities together? And then the last one is thinking long term. And I think that's something which is, you know, maybe a little bit more rare is you understand that sometimes you have to ta make that short term sacrifice.

for the long term gain and I think, you know, you you shared a few stories where that is rung true and I think that's led to to a lot of the success that you've had. Yeah.

speaker-0 (57:40.31)
I think you've just summed up my life in a couple of sentences, but yes, I'm attracted to the next shiny thing. That can be good. That can be bad. Curiosity. It's interesting that creative people are often seen as artists and all the rest of it. But I think people in leadership positions in business have to be creative, know, solutions. You have to find a way in which you can

speaker-2 (58:04.078)
Yep.

speaker-0 (58:07.234)
to bring everyone with you. Because I said, it's no good leading if no one's following.

speaker-2 (58:11.462)
Mm and and to add to that a list of amazing traits that you have, I think you're also very trustworthy, like very genuine and and that helps you I would say authentic and that would help you to build relationship. I mean, we only met you yesterday, in in person I guess, you know, like we just talked like friends, like we we met like twenty years ago, right?

So you have that ability of connecting with people because y what you see, what you get. Like, you know, you don't you have that authenticity.

speaker-0 (58:51.532)
Yeah, I think you have to, you can't get caught up in your own, in your own ego or your own success or your own, infallibility. You're just another person in the world doing the best they can believing that everyone else is doing the best they can. And that's it. So, look, this has been a privilege. we're sitting here in a room at seven o'clock in the morning and, I listened to one or two of your podcasts.

speaker-2 (59:09.088)
Yeah, absolutely.

speaker-0 (59:20.866)
So thank you for the opportunity to share my story and hopefully listeners or viewers will get a couple of gems out of it.

speaker-2 (59:28.566)
Absolutely. And Scott, thank you so much for fitting us into your busy schedule. And for our listeners, if you've gotten something from today's episode, it would mean the world if you can like and subscribe so we can share these stories to more and more ears. And you can see all of our episodes over at our website, thequest for successpodcast dot com. And with that, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening.